Heirlooms and Accessories

Kerry James Marshall based Heirlooms and Accessories

on a famous journalistic photograph from 1930 that shows

a white crowd watching the lynching of two black men

in Marion, Indiana. Marshall digitally altered the photograph

to make it very faint (a process called “ghosting”). He then added images of necklaces that highlight three women—“accessories” to the crime. They have turned away from

the lynching to look at the photographer, whose place we

in turn occupy as viewers. The eye contact we make with these individuals implicates us as bystanders to this bleak history.

Chicago-based Marshall first became known as a painter.

Like many of his peers who move among media in search

of the most effective means to express their ideas,

Marshall now also works in sculpture, installation, video,

and photo-based processes. Here, the idea of that this violent legacy serves as a twisted kind of heirloom or memento

is heightened by Marshall’s use of the photographic medium,

as well as his choice to add sparkling rhinestones to the

jewel-box-like frames.