Melvin A. Marshall

Please join us for a live virtual conversation with Melvin A. Marshall, the Founder and Chief Curator of Art Culture Now LLC and ArtCultureNow.com. He is also a gallery co-owner, senior curator and writer at Band of Vices Art Gallery and BandofVices.com in Los Angeles, CA. 

Mr. Marshall has recently co-curating MASTERPIECE III: An Ode to Okwui Enwezor with Raphael Dapaah at Band of Vices Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA in July 2022 and numerous art exhibits over the years. He was the first chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporian Arts (MoCADA) in Brooklyn, NY, where he co-curated the “ground-breaking exhibition” “From Challenge to Triumph: African American Prints & Printmaking, 1867-2002” (2002). As stated by Marshall, "The goal of the exhibit was to carry the viewer through a rich cultural history that has often been omitted from the general discourse on American art. It was also a 135-year exploration into the development of print imagery and printmaking techniques done by African Americans."

He received his second MA degree in contemporary art history from the Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he studied under 2010 Turner Prize-nominee Kodwo Eshun and Professor Irit Rogoff. His Master’s thesis focused on artwork of the contemporary British artist Chris Ofili. Mr. Marshall completed his first MA degree with honors in contemporary art history at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, where he was supervised by Profs. Anthony Downey, Kathy Battista, Marcus Verhagen and Gilda Williams. The subject of his honors MA thesis was the oeuvre of contemporary American artist Kerry James Marshall.

Mr. Marshall is currently working on his first book of art essays and has authored several published essays and museum catalog pieces, including the recent ArtNEWS December 2021 feature on contemporary artist Lauren Halsey, guest-edited by Hank Willis Thomas. He has written essays on numerous artists including Kerry James Marshall, Kehinde Wiley, Chris Ofili, Lorna Simpson, Deborah Willis, Hank Willis Thomas, Shantell Martin and Carlos Delgado. More recently, he has written about Tony Ramos, Talita Long, Robert Moore, Yrneh Gabon, Oluseye Ogunlesi, Grace Lynne Haynes, Lisa Diane Wedgeworth, among others.

Co-moderators:

Maya Thomas, Co-Founder of the Dox Thrash House Project in Philadelphia. 

Randy Mason, Faculty Director of CPCRS