McArthur Binion&rsquo;s grid-filled canvases are more than meets the eye. Upon closer inspection, the artist reveals his ability to turn order and pattern into something reactive.

Photography William Jess Laird Styled by Kimberly Nguyen&nbsp;

Art at its best is anything but simple, easily reduced, or onedimensional. The <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/chanel-boutique-chicago-drake-hotel-2019" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chicago-based</a> painter McArthur Binion has been working for more than 50 years to bring layers&mdash;literally and figuratively&mdash;to his canvases. If someone were to give his most recent paintings a cursory look, they read as successful abstract works: perfectly balanced, elaborate grids of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/psychodelic-pants-spring-wardrobe-fashion-style-trend" target="_blank" rel="noopener">color and line</a>&mdash;they operate beautifully just at that level. For some artists, that would be enough.
A closer look, though, reveals that the lines aren&rsquo;t perfectly straight, and the small variations create a subtle <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/trend-movement-inspire-spring-style-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">movement</a> and tension. And just below the top layer&mdash;a place Binion calls the &ldquo;underconscious&rdquo; of the work, a turn of phrase that demonstrates his facility as a writer&mdash;it turns out there&rsquo;s a whole other painting, in the form of images that lie within the squares of the grid. For example, over many years Binion has painted portions of his old address book there, summoning a kind of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/politics-culture/sharon-stone-autobiography-the-beauty-of-living-twice-video" target="_blank" rel="noopener">autobiography</a> from the names and numbers of his past.
The complexity in his work has fueled his late-career flowering. Binion is in the permanent collections of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/what-happens-inside-met-gala-2021-seating-chart-performances" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Met</a>, the Whitney, and SFMOMA, and even the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/obama-holiday-home-for-sale" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Obamas</a> have purchased several of his paintings. This fall, he had a show at New York&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/mcarthur-binion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lehmann Maupin Gallery</a>, Modern:Ancient:Brown, featuring 11 paintings.

One of the most poignant pieces in the show is &ldquo;Modern:Ancient: Brown: Cross(ed) The Line,&rdquo; a new painting in ink, oil paint stick, and paper on board. The grid dazzles, but peering through from below are ghostly images from a 1920s lynching in Indiana. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the key piece in the show,&rdquo; says Binion, who turns 76 in October. The images depict the Black man who was lynched, as well as a white family who &ldquo;put on their Sunday-best white shirts to come to the lynching,&rdquo; he adds.&nbsp;
For a Black artist from Mississippi who picked cotton with his sister on a family farm when he was three years old, the scene resonates. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just part of the history of who I am,&rdquo; says Binion. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s wild, but I was finishing up the painting in the same week that the Derek Chauvin trial was going on for the murder of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/black-lives-matter-fashion-beauty-brand-donations-movement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">George Floyd</a>. It was a very heavy coincidence.&rdquo;
In the past few years, Binion, a longtime <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/remembering-billie-holiday-songs-style" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jazz</a> lover, has shown a sense of timing that any <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/5-famous-lgbtq-music-artists-elton-john-freddie-mercury" target="_blank" rel="noopener">musician</a> would admire: When the world was primed to embrace him fully, he was ready. Four years ago, his career and visibility were given a big boost when a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/monet-painting-artwork-on-sale-after-25-years-sothebys-auction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">painting</a> from his DNA series grabbed attention at the 2017 Venice Biennale, and was considered a highlight of the exhibition.&nbsp;

I don't want to make my other shows look small, but this is just like pure power.

&ldquo;I just kicked everybody&rsquo;s ass,&rdquo; says Binion, who often talks tough to show his deep level of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/men/nino-cerruti-kim-jones-interview-menswear-design" target="_blank" rel="noopener">emotional involvement.</a> He does not lack self-assurance. &ldquo;This is my best work ever,&rdquo; Binion says of the current show. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to make my other shows look small, but this is just like pure power.&rdquo;
His brio extends to his <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/high-fashion-designers-embrace-personal-style-tiktok-genz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">personal style</a>. Binion says he&rsquo;s &ldquo;always dressed differently than anyone I know,&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;I like super high-quality clothes.&rdquo; In addition to having some of his wardrobe custom-made, his closet includes pieces by <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/balmain-spring-summer-2022-collection-beyonce-doja-cat" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Balmain</a> and other designers.
<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/rashid-johnson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rashid Johnson</a>, the superstar artist a generation younger than Binion who considers him a mentor, says, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s always been a really confident picture maker.&rdquo; More than that, Binion seems to have had a sense of his own destiny, particularly related to his recent blossoming.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m excited to see all the attention that&rsquo;s being paid to his work, and he always told me this would happen,&rdquo; says Johnson, who studied with Binion starting at age 19 at Chicago&rsquo;s Columbia College, where Binion taught for 23 years. &ldquo;He was self-assured, even when I didn&rsquo;t see what the strategy was&mdash;he was holding back works from the 1970s with this [renaissance] in mind. And then I was like, &lsquo;OK, it actually fucking happened.&rsquo;&rdquo;

Franklin Sirmans, the director of the P&eacute;rez Art Museum Miami, notes that Binion has been consistent in his approach <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/footwear-through-the-decades-popular-shoes-trends-50s-60s-fashion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">throughout the decades</a>, as various painting modes waxed and waned in art world popularity. &ldquo;Lately there has been this embrace of representation and the figure&mdash;it&rsquo;s in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/telfar-is-the-latest-recipient-of-the-cfda-vogue-fashion-fund" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vogue</a>,&rdquo; says Sirmans. &ldquo;But McArthur has been persistent with abstraction, and he advances his cause.&rdquo;
After spending his earliest years in Mississippi, Binion moved to <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/every-look-bottega-veneta-salon-03-runway-collection-daniel-lee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Detroit</a> at age four. &ldquo;I had a speech block and a stutter,&rdquo; he says of his childhood, and he still stutters. He developed what he calls &ldquo;non-verbal communication&rdquo; skills that would later translate to painting&mdash;but not right away.
&ldquo;The first time I went to a museum was the Museum of Modern Art when I was 19 years old,&rdquo; Binion says, a visit that came when he was working as a junior editor at a publication in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/shwetambari-mody-designer-interview" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York</a>, after having dropped out of Wayne State University in Detroit (where he later completed a major in creative writing). &ldquo;I had never gone to a museum or anything.&rdquo; Abstract Expressionism in particular bowled him over, as did the work of Jasper Johns.&nbsp;

Binion eventually attended Michigan&rsquo;s prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art. He was one of the first Black persons to get an MFA there, and though he loved the experience, he was also frustrated by the isolation. That feeling would come again when he was back in New York trying to make it as an artist. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to be the only Black person, always,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;There weren&rsquo;t any Black people downtown.&rdquo;
But upsides were plentiful, too. In 1973, he was in a group show with the likes of Dan Flavin and Sol Lewitt, giving a sense of his considerable early success. &ldquo;My rent was $145 a month for a floor in Tribeca,&rdquo; says Binion, who taught, drove a cab, and made art, as well as enjoyed the downtown scene, befriending Jean-Michel Basquiat and others by the 1980s. &ldquo;It was so amazing.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Ninety percent of artists, their brain is better than their hand. For me, I want my hand to me better than my brain.&nbsp;

Settling in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/our-top-picks-from-complexcon-chicago" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chicago</a> in 1991, Binion focused on teaching, though he was always making art, even if he wasn&rsquo;t exhibiting it as often. Now, as he enters a whole new level of achievement and fame, he is deepening his commitment to his <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/5-designers-to-remember-from-midwest-fashion-week" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Midwestern roots</a> while also making the path to a breakthrough easier for others.
In 2019 he created the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, which he self-funds for the benefit of up-and-coming <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/doug-aitken-s-architectural-installation-transcends-time" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Detroit</a> artists. In addition to grants and seminars, a residency for nine artists starts this fall. &ldquo;I want to find the next me,&rdquo; says Binion. &ldquo;Hopefully lots of them.&rdquo; And he adds that he hopes many of the success stories to come out of the foundation will be female.&nbsp;
In his own studio, Binion is up early every day, laying down his ambitious grids on huge canvases, some of which require him to work atop tall ladders and twist his body to get in the right position. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m killing myself probably,&rdquo; he says, laughing. He has always put a premium on craft and labor honed over the decades, versus relying only on clever conceptual ideas. &ldquo;Ninety percent of artists, their brain is better than their hand,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;For me, I want my hand to be better than my brain.&rdquo;
The title of one of the Lehmann Maupin works, &ldquo;Stuttering:Standing:Still (LDM II) VI&rdquo; from 2013, brings up the topic of stuttering itself&mdash;perhaps an awkward subject for some, but not for Binion. The artist sees it as the opposite of a setback. &ldquo;Man, stuttering, it saved my life,&rdquo; Binion says. &ldquo;If I were able as a young person to talk fluently like all my other friends, I would&rsquo;ve been a lawyer for sure, because that&rsquo;s what you did when you were raised poor and you wanted to help other people.&rdquo;

Instead, he poured his energy into painting repetitive lines over and over, laying down a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/maison-kitsune-yuni-ahn-2019" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rhythmic pattern</a> but also breaking it with gestures large and small. He seems to think the condition not only guided his career path, but influenced his <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/retro-eyeliner-makeup-fall-beauty-inspiration-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">aesthetic</a>, too. &ldquo;The repetition is my stutter,&rdquo; Binion says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s exactly what it is.&rdquo;
The result is works that are both <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/who-is-iris-apfel-fashion-icon-jewelry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vibrant and open</a> to interpretation. &ldquo;I wanted to have something for everybody,&rdquo; Binion says of the different reactions he gets, and encourages. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I love. That&rsquo;s where the challenge lies.&rdquo;
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GROOMING Jo Franco PRODUCTION Shayan Asadi PHOTO ASSISTANT Alex Morgan STYLIST ASSISTANT Sasha Leon&nbsp;

McArthur Binion: Practice Makes Perfect

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