I’m at the Museum of Contemporary Art for an ArtTable exhibition event. Kerry James Marshall paints his black history and MOCA shares it in “Mastery”.

Kerry James Marshall creates a roller coaster of work that brings me up short. He shows me growing up black, being black, and experiencing black life, in America, is a wrenching experience. Just when you feel tears well up at the insensitivity of society, he shows you love and joy so deep you realize art liberates everyone.

I leave the retrospective of this master painter with great appreciation for art museums and the role they play in social justice, civil society and happiness. Social Justice because I see with new eyes the inequities that create divisions. Civil society because I leave committed to do my part in expressing the human story and happiness, because I am a better person for witnessing the beauty and courage displayed on the walls of the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Los Angeles.

~ Catalina