Marlon Griffith

This is the first monograph on the procession and installation practice of Trinidadian-born, Japan based artist Marlon Griffith. With essays by Emelie Chhangur, Chanzo Greenidge, Gabriel Levine, and Claire Tancons, Symbols of Endurance explores Griffith’s unique contribution to contemporary art through a detailed analysis of the artist’s formative engagement with vernacular tradition, popular and festive forms of civic celebration, and performative forms of colonial cultural resistance in the Americas.
Symbols of Endurance follows Griffith’s artistic trajectory from his early career as a designer, or ‘Masman’, for Carnivals in Trinidad and London and considers these origins in relation to his later largescale public processions created and staged in-situ across the globe for contemporary art audiences.
This publication is a major contribution for anyone engaged in participatory practices of collective and creative resistance, performance as mode of public address and intercultural exchange, and alternative forms of exhibition making in the civic sphere.
Published in partnership with Art Gallery of York University.