Rythm Mastr: Tower of Power

Artist: Kerry James Marshall, American, born 1955
Author: Kerry James Marshall, American, born 1955
Publisher: Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, founded 1896
Date: 1999
Material: Artist's newspaper comic
published in: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, North and Central America
Classification: Prints
Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Current Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet (folded): 16 15/16 × 11 3/8 in. (43 × 28.9 cm)
Credit Line: Transferred from the Richardson Memorial Library, Saint Louis Art Museum
Rights: © Kerry James Marshall. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Object Number: 34:2019

NOTES

This comic strip’s action figures are based on historical African art objects. Led by the drummer Rythm Mastr, these superheroes join forces with the story’s young main characters, Farell and Stasha, to navigate conflicts in a sci-fi Chicago cityscape. Rythm Mastr proposes a future in which black Americans embrace African cultural heritage in order to boldly forge ahead. The work remains true to the artist Kerry James Marshall’s exclusive portrayal of black subjects and his questioning of their absence or marginalization in art history.

The first edition of Rythm Mastr, printed commercially on newsprint, was produced for the Carnegie International exhibition in 1999. It also appeared as an eight-week series that year in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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