Kerry James Marshall. Rythm Mastr: This Is How It Begins - Hardcover

Robecchi, Michele

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 949303951X ISBN 13: 9789493039513

Publisher: Ludion, 2025

Synopsis

In 1999 American artist Kerry James Marshall began working on his comics series Rythm Mastr in response to what he perceived as the historic absence of black characters and authors in the comics industry. Initially serialized in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for eight weeks, Rythm Mastr was eventually presented as an installation on the occasion of the 1999/2000 Carnegie International, where the newspaper pages would cover the vitrines of the Carnegie Museum Treasure Room.

In contrast with characters such as the Black Panther or the Falcon, Rythm Mastr focuses on the daily struggle of black people, elevating events like gang crimes and public houses demolition to epic proportion while following the adventures of the two protagonists, i>Rythm Mastr, and his young protégé, Farell. Over the course of the past two decades, Rythm Mastr has been presented in various incarnations, including light boxes, paintings and drawings. Thing came full circle when, almost twenty years later, Rythm Mastr was exhibited again in an updated form at the 2018 Carnegie international. This book is the most comprehensive discussion of Rythm Mastr to date, chronicling its genesis and developments, as well as offering a deep analysis of Marshall’s motivations and aspirations when he started the series.

About this title

About the Author

Kerry James Marshall (b.1955, Birmingham, Alabama) is one of the leading contemporary artists of his time. Internationally renowned for his revolutionary portraits of Black subjects, Marshall’s work interrogates Western art history – from the Renaissance to 20th-century American Abstraction – challenging and recontextualizing the canon to include themes and depictions that have been historically omitted. He lives and works in Chicago. Michele Robecchi is a writer and editor based in London.

From the Back Cover

Kerry James Marshall, widely considered one of America's greatest living painters and an inspired chronicler of the African-American experience, has sought to diversify the art-historical canon.

In the late 1990s, he began working on a series of comics in response to the absence of authentic Black characters and authors in the mainstream. Marshall's comic offers an alternative reality focused on the main character, Rythm Mastr, his young protégé, Farrell, and computer whiz, Stasha - superheroes whose powers derive from the seven gods of the Yoruba pantheon.

The characters debate history, philosophy, and politics in vernacular Black English, using the graphic novel medium to create an empowering, utopian blend of science fiction and Afrofuturism. This volume is the most comprehensive look at the series, its genesis, and its evolution.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ludion
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 949303951X
• ISBN 13: 9789493039513
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208