Now and Forever
Kerry James Marshall
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Amidst the grand architecture and intricate stained glass of the Washington National Cathedral, artist Kerry James Marshall stands before an audience gathered for the unveiling of his new work Now and Forever. The stained glass windows the artist designed were commissioned to replace the Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson windows that were removed from the Cathedral in 2017. As Marshall addresses the crowd seated in the church pews, he reflects on his long career making images and the power of art to “invite us to imagine oneself as a subject and an author of a neverending story that is still yet to be told.” The story he chooses to tell in the Now and Forever windows is one of protest, calling back to the founding of the United States and the constitutional clause that allows for the redress of grievances and the continual revision and improvement of our nation through struggle.
The windows feature anonymous individuals marching and holding signs that state “Fairness Not No Foul Play” when read together. The statement is inspired by the words of Chicago’s first Black Mayor, Harold Washington, and draws a relationship between the ideal state of “fairness” and the “foul play” that disrupts that state and must be fought against. Throughout his life, Marshall has witnessed the struggles and injustices that condition the lives of many across the United States and the world, and it is these experiences that shaped the imagery that the artist conceived for Now and Forever and that inform his practice as a whole. For Marshall, the replacement of the windows represents a mandate. “The chance to live,” he says, “makes us obligated to do whatever we can to guarantee that those processes that were played out before we arrived are not repeated in the same way.”
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About the artists
Kerry James Marshall was born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, and currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. The artist was educated at Otis Art Institute, where he received a BFA in 1978 and an honorary doctorate in 1999. In his work, Marshall interrogates Western art history, recontextualizing the canon to include themes and imagery that have been historically excluded. Through his paintings, drawings, installations, and public works, the artist builds a body of work that privileges the Black figure, using race, history, and everyday Black experiences as the inspiration for his work.
