>>> Marcus Brutus is a Maryland-based,
self-taught artist. A child of Haitian immigrants,
Brutus attended St. John's College in Queens
and has worked in public relations.
His paintings reveal a subtle alternative narrative of
black life in America. The first solo show of his work was
this year at Harper's Books in New York.
>>> As I was learning to paint, the better I got at
painting, I was telling these stories.
>>> How do you get a first show, like a gallery show,
in New York? How did this come about?
>>> It’s a bit random. Through Instagram the
artist Jen Guidi, she had discovered my work and
then one day she had shared on her Instagram
and Harper had reached out to her to see if he could
contact me, and then he contacted me, and from
there we started talking and a show developed.
>>> So social media, like marketing, really works?
>>> Yes, definitely.
>>> You didn't go to art school -- you studied other
things -- but what did you study? Does it have
anything to do with being a painter now?
>>> Well, studying public relations, so taking that
and just applying that into art practice sort of helped,
and that’s sort of the center of the works that are created
through storytelling. And then also being an
effective communicator. You have to communicate,
you know, these ideas in a way that people can fully
comprehend your perspective.
>>> Your paintings are very narrative.
It's obvious in them. They seem to be kind of like a
moment in some story and they have quite
interesting characters. There's the afro-pessimists...
>>> The image itself was inspired by a still in the
movie The Insider. And so that's where I kind of got
the idea of having this guy in sort of a military
green sort of jacket, and he's standing in front of
a film still of the movie The Hyenas. That sort of
presented the idea of afro-pessimism.
He’s supposed to look kind of sharper. In the back it’s a bit
of a distortion because it’s supposed to represent,
like, a screen, like -
>>> The fusion of the two things is bringing together an idea
that you have about an attitude maybe in the culture...?
>>> It's actually just on the surface supposed to blend,
it's blending our identities. If you're African-American,
your lineage begins in Africa, so it's kind of just
blending those two things together. He's wearing the
American pin, yet his expression is similar to the
afro-pessimists who are essentially saying the
effects of colonialism -- for them it's colonialism.
>>> It's sort of reverse colonialism. What is your
feeling about Africa? I noticed a lot of black artists
are now incorporating black motifs into their work
and sometimes I'm not really clear about how
closely connected that relationship is.
>>> I didn't grow up there so I can't say that, yes,
I feel very close to it. It has more to do with
feeling sort of distant to American culture.
And also, another thing is my family is Haitian.
So I'm a child of an immigrant. I'm from an immigrant
family. So that's just another layer to feeling as if,
you know, you don't really have much of an
identity here in America. So it's connecting to
something that is an imagined identity,
you know, from an imagined past.
>>> There are people here who I think forget that
they were once immigrants in this country.
Their families came here, sometimes only like 80
years ago or something like that. But sometimes,
like, skin color or the way people assimilate
makes them feel more entitled more quickly.
>>>The alienation part or that feeling, of feeling alienated,
I think it helps me understand things holistically.
I rarely ever completely like or dislike anything because
you're very aware of the different...
or just how things break down, you know?
Yes, there's economic prosperity in America.
But how did we achieve that? And who are we exploiting,
you know, simultaneously?
>>> One painting in particular I like is The Dutchmen.
It's about your ability to capture these
facial expressions. There's something going on
in that painting that I don't quite understand.
There's clearly a story there.
>>> The figures are essentially just a gathering of
young men, black men getting together and sort of
exchanging ideas. And that's why the book of
LeRoi Jones’ poems are there. And so then I
begin to think of the Beat Generation. That's the
significance of LeRoi Jones because I was like,
oh, were there any sort of black players during this
moment? And he was one of them. He had a film called
The Dutchman in the 60s that sort of takes place
on the train. And it kind of didn't really age well,
certain elements of it, but it sort of replays the
story of Adam and Eve and uses a black male figure
and the white female figure, a woman figure.
>>> How have you found your way into those sources,
that culture of those narratives?
>>> I'm very interested in these themes, so I kind of
become obsessive and I want to know everything,
I kind of want to see everything that's out there.
The work works best when I'm referencing
something that was kind of overlooked or forgotten
and then I can reintroduce it in the work.
>>> You're going back to the past as well because
what I see in your work too, it feels retro and in
some ways I think that's the style.
>>> What I'm looking to do is establish a bit of a legacy.
Currently, you know, it's Black Lives Matter.
What they're discussing, what they're protesting and
talking about, you know, it isn’t new. There tends to
not be sort of a continuation of these discussions,
you know, it sort of ends with one generation and
it gets picked up by the next. I want to tell these
very contemporary issues, but sort of show them
as having some long past.
>>> It's an age-old problem.
>>> It’s an age-old problem. But also,
the work isn't, just all about the trauma. There's also
been long lineages of exceptional figures and I
kind of want to show light to the work that they've
been doing.
>>> There's one painting of a guy -- the title is
Enough is Enough -- and it has the tie with the names
of recent victims of police violence. Is that a
particular figure from the past?
>>> Uh, no. The figure is not a random figure. However,
the tie was worn by Randy Moss at his Hall of Fame
acceptance. He’s essentially staging a
quiet protest in front of a police station.
>>> That figure looks like he could be some sort of
Black Panther or Malcolm X, or some kind of figure.
He's kind of a generic black guy in a suit.
>>> And it's about confronting society’s perspective and
how they view us and how they paint us. You know,
if you're strong that means you're violent and criminal
and almost sort of animalistic and beast like.
And it kind of gives reason to why people can,
in a strange way, begin to justify police killings.
They start to use certain wording that begins to
associate with that thing.
>>> One of my favorite paintings is Park Jam.
There are a lot of logos going on in the painting.
What is the symbolism of product placement?
>>> It isn't about selling merchandise, but sort of
like how these logos and symbols have been
reinterpreted and reimagined. For instance,
Nike since the 1980s sort of grew, you know, through
Michael Jordan...
>>> ...and has been recently politicized, just accidently.
[by Colin Kaepernick]
>>> Yeah, it’s got this nice new relevance.
But yeah, it was a symbol of cool, outside of just sport.
But that painting actually, it initially had a bit more
of an anti-capitalist narrative.
>>> Including those logos.
But then as I was making it I sort of changed it
and kind of related it to more to Hip-Hop.
Hip-Hop has also played a role in sort of changing
and reimagining ideas in society.
>>> When will America be seen as a true melting pot,
which is what it was always established to be.
You know, we still adhere to some kind of English
idea or something, and yet... it sounds like a
cliché but it's true, the real force of the country
is the diversity that has created it.
>>> Definitely. I think, maybe, when people
are given the power to sort of define themselves
rather than just society defining people.
And that's any sort of group of a minority.
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