![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAbCz8jbeh_KHjeYejLiDJz1NWvZY5UZcINiRhoAS89qt_1Izvz1MzqoBfKbk7ycH0CKG6zJ9RI-lwlrkfJ9wJfBNXTCBglEx9Cjt5osZ7RAG43K1ages0cotbMq8QmQ89jl1UtbfS6q_w9pEqukSnv2hpgeefzVO8NU2z7BlKEGg2FwtFapVdCwPnjA/s16000/Cooler.jpg) |
Mario Moore, What's Cooler Than Being Cool?, 2019 |
The California African American Museum's "Mario Moore / Enshrined: Presence + Preservation" is a small survey of works by the Detroit-based realist painter. Moore paints Black subjects in an Old Master mode, and his technical skills manage to bring that familiar trope to a new level. A 2019 self-portrait in the snow is baroque in the best sense of the word, creating magic from the matter-of-fact-ness of life and oil pigment.
A Student's Dream, conceived while Moore was recovering from surgery, is a subversion of Thomas Eakins' The Agnew Clinic from the other side of the Tuskegee study. Other paintings on view (plus several large-scale drawings) span informal portraits (often on copper), political allegories, eye-of-the-artist perspectives, and Old Master burlesques. It is often the scenes of everyday life that are the strangest. I Continue to Dream, a painting of the lunch counter run by the artist's grandmother, is a haunting meditation on memory and the power of images.
Curated by Taylor Renee Aldridge, "Mario Moore / Enshrined" opened last year at Detroit's Charles H. Wright Museum. It runs at CAAM through Oct. 2, 2022.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW4_5uCM7Aav_vlZlkRR2kXiUvJqWfVOTkMpTfUuBqE0kihSlaKRpUzPHAXDaUOwRXB-w45o0D2O7WPQ7qiHzukaIUJbUE7blYltRl_KiFT-HHwPjNuYsDI5du8iKlsrOuaVQwQmBDFhnb-62SqDKB_1aQOxOg43--u2IfciV4e7asJ4J2f_6_sUDOkg/s16000/Dream.jpg) |
Mario Moore, A Student's Dream, 2017 |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8H8Vq3jp0GaNdzxtEJj1VYJs8EJYe8z4cknh_yM4OFWbCCzk2xVvEQ3j_xCWD6qkrhNHd5sPI1-RNLiqtZdFB81DfZXYNPD58VhE2jYWtZs05xHnW-qDeYYSpbkkfu41EDT_qvRDRbP-h5hB93Ob4xqd8GkmIR4r_bopqdMiEsvJuNTpknzMcOtGlIg/s16000/Black%20and%20Blue.jpg) |
Mario Moore, Black and Blue, 2016 |
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Mario Moore, Come Study, 2012 |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDY89C8T5hsEPop-YHkuKcrnoJQ5MZY8sHY4-I77c8OEEW-PXkXEChinPIp_asd-x9O3efbf9oHBja5F-KEu8YB12KZ-Kw3QyeTNQBLLXDgzJzvzWMgYqPVGaEvTHccjVaMIr4ZUIgUFlwRnryf1DPYg326hmwg2FR-aRxezW_KHM3m2XQ9Qk7DoeqEA/s16000/Continue.jpg) |
Mario Moore, I Continue to Dream, 2020 |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0a_8ExUADpaopo0ynGCJ-c50Av-nJyup8x9iTO9m6bOV9YZbMoBqY56bzUCxGYjN0K4UNmTLcoo7d8wmRyXGJC-Yt8--noQlckCLScJcNXgD2dqpj0YPmqW5V8pW_tHn8WwtYdug4mMdbK-hi43TNR9a_t_s4YTMz1YPAa3deqAAptAD5Dww4g2UPYg/s16000/Light.jpg) |
Mario Moore, Light on Brother (Jalen), 2019 |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhycxt0f8HBa0D8TmaShEl5fKlabSIH1PBQfseToYav2wPD_joa-Ryqyt5jSoHMQ2-QGommctdjoIs20lH1XC59DQ4URzItk9qHRGvzBVYPcMngJ3rHjpsIK1Zafyev4lq-mlk9yZEPnGcxNAlaA9fGDS5qOwqEH2OQvqQx6RbIssigoOoWJO-H1tA0Gw/s16000/Landscape.jpg) |
Mario Moore, Not Your Landscape, 2017 |
Comments
As for a MOCA or Broad? Or the Hammer? Moore's art doesn't come with enough of a cachet of "Huh?" or a certificate of hipster/avant-garde to qualify for such museums.
Meanwhile, LACMA is looking for a suitable type of window drapery. Louver or fabric?