The young members of our collaborative art-making team, K.O.S. (“Kids of Survival”), and I began reading and exploring ways to visually interpret Ralph Ellison’s classic Invisible Man in 1992.  Working out of our South Bronx studio, we wrestled daily - for several years - with the great issues of the novel: invisibility; alienation; the youthful search for identity; how to survive the tyranny of history, age, and of ethnic and economic oppression; and, perhaps above all, what does it mean to be an American?  How might all of this be represented in a painting?  It all seemed impossible.

Until one day.

We were all still reeling from a relentless sequence of tragic events throughout 1993: the cruel Valentine’s Day murder of our youngest and dearest member, 15 year-old Christopher Hernandez; the emotional collapse and loss of several other members due to the killing; and the financial collapse of our art market leading to the loss of our studio and most of its contents in early August.  Quickly taking up makeshift residence in a storage closet at a nearby community center, the remaining members of K.O.S. and I were determined to continue working and making art together.

By September, we had abandoned our work on our Invisible Man, concentrating instead on a new series of paintings inspired by the prophetic last sermon of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I see the Promised Land, delivered April 3^rd, 1968, on the eve on his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee.  As usual, K.O.S. and I began deeply researching the period of the sermon in order to find clues that would result in a painting inspired by the text.  Learning the Rev. Dr. King had come to Memphis to support the city’s striking sanitation workers, we were moved by the many photographs taken throughout the struggle.  We were especially drawn to the picture taken by Memphis photographer Ernest Withers.  The photo was a magisterial group portrait of the striking workers who each held a placard bearing a simple but indelible statement: I AM A MAN.  Then it hit us.  “I am a man.”  “I am . .”  “I.M.”  “Invisible Man.”

It happened that on our small worktable among the historical materials and photographs was also a copy of that day’s “Daily News,” a local New York paper.  The large headline in bold matte black letters contained the dreaded words MURDER VICTIM.  We immediately had the idea to cut the two last letters off the word VICTIM leaving only the letters I and M.  We then began tracing these two ciphers onto pages taken from Ellison’s novel from the 1950s.

I am.  This is the essential message of all art.

Inspired by Memphis’ past, this version of Invisible Man was made in concert with the future of Memphis - its youth - in studio workshops supported by the Echoes of Truth program, the Ida B. Wells Academy of Memphis City Schools, and Jay Etkin Gallery.

Tim Rollins

South Bronx, N.Y.C.