PMA Highlights: Tim Rollins and K.O.S.
Tim Rollins (United States, 1955-2017), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Asleep on the Raft (after Mark Twain), 2011, Matte acrylic, book pages, and gesso on canvas, 48 x 60 x 1 1/2 inches. Museum purchase with support from the Leonard and Merle Nelson Fund for Social Justice, the Harold P. and Mildred A. Nelson Art Purchase Fund, and the Friends of the Collection, 2012.22.
By Ariel Hagan Elwell
This article is featured in The Collection: Highlights from the Portland Museum of Art
Tim Rollins has worked collaboratively with the Kids of Survival (K.O.S.) since 1984.
He grew up in Pittsfield, Maine, and attended the University of Maine at Augusta before moving to New York City and earning a B.F.A. at the School of Visual Arts in 1980. Not long after, Rollins founded K.O.S., which currently has eight members. As a middle-school art teacher in the South Bronx, Rollins formed an after-school club for special education students called the Art and Knowledge Workshop. The group then named itself the Kids of Survival, referring to their struggles with poverty, violence, and drug use. K.O.S. provided a refuge and a sense of optimism for its young members. Decades later, they continue to assemble to discuss literature and create artwork inspired by their conversations.
Pairing book pages with painted imagery forms the core of the group’s practice. They have recently used text from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dracula by Bram Stoker, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, writings by Martin Luther King, Jr., and On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Asleep on the Raft (after Mark Twain) depicts the character Jim from the classic 1884 American novel. Huck Finn’s companion in adventure sits on a raft, his weary arms resting on his knees. The background is formed by a collage of pages ripped from a copy of the book, beginning with the text that corresponds to the scene that the painting portrays, and pasted onto the canvas in an orderly, sequential grid. The painted composition layered above is the artists’ re-creation of E. W. Kemble’s illustration from the first edition of Twain’s book. When speaking about the group’s works inspired by the novel, Rollins connected this image to racial equality and historic oppression of African Americans: “It doesn’t matter what you look like. . . . We’re on the raft together. We need each other to survive.” The subtly distorted treatment of Jim’s figure alludes to the racism of the late nineteenth century, while also prompting questions about American history, appropriation, literature, and the nature of illustration