Marshall’s title of Past Times is ambiguous. Usually, leisure activities are “pastimes,” but as two words “past times” suggests his memories of picnics or, more generally, the pleasantries of leisure. His ambiguity is intentional, especially because this is a picnic without any visible food.
What is sure is that this is a picnic, and it satisfies Marshall’s aim is making African Americans visible in the painting. “If no one is out there working to produce paintings with a racially different set of figures,” he said, “non-white people will always be in trouble. I keep making pictures that aim to make their way into museums.”
Past Times is a typical picnic, except all figures black are dressed in white. This stark contrast shows how the differences between Blacks and Whites are a matter of visibility. Happy picnics are so much alike that it does not matter who participates.
There are sorts of sports, golf, boating and water skiing. But what is in the wicker is unknown. musical notes emanating from the radios are difficult to read online. According to Sotheby’s, they are from The Temptations singing “It was “Just my Imagination (Running Away with Me” and Snoop Dogg’s “With my hand on my money and my money on my nine.”
Marshall often adds text to his paintings. Here the banner reads “. . .Who plays…all of the heart and…. skill Will also work with heart and will. . .”
There is no food visible.
See Victoria Valentine. Kerry James Marshall Previews His Master Paintings at MCA Chicago. (May 2, 2016); Helen Anne Molesworth. Kerry James Marshall: Mastery. Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2016