The End of My Beginning

Today we'd like to introduce you to The End of My Beginning, the first full-length monograph of artist Jamal Cyrus.

As the first full-length monograph of Houston-based visual artist Jamal Cyrus, The End of My Beginning features an overview of Cyrus’ practice of cobbling modern artifacts that trace the evolution of Black identity as it migrates across the African diaspora, Middle Passage, Jazz Age, and Civil Rights movements from the 1960s to now.

Published to accompany Cyrus’ first career survey exhibition at the Blaffer Art Museum and its subsequent tour to ICA LA and the Mississippi Museum of Art,  The End of My Beginning includes materially diverse and conceptually charged textile-based pieces, assemblages, performances, installations, and works on paper produced in the past two decades, including his ongoing Pride Records installation series. Together, these multidisciplinary artworks demonstrate Cyrus’ commemoration, translation, and re-activation of socio-political struggles in African American history—forging a revised chronicle of histories, hybridity, and redemption.

The End of My Beginning

Editor: Jamal Cyrus
Design: IN-FO.CO
Co-publisher: Inventory Press and Blaffer Art Museum
Size: 8.25 × 10.5 inches
Volume: 136 p.
ISBN: 978-1-941753-44-6
Price: $35.–
Limited copies now available.
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Pictures: Jamal Cyrcus, Image courtesy of the Artist and Inman Gallery, Houston
“Jet Auto Archive—April 27, May 11, May 25, 1992 (Medicated L.A. Kente),” 2018. Collection of Megan & Casey McManemin
“The Black Messiah, Live at the Troubadour,” 2008. Private Collection
“Eroding Witness 7,” 2014 (remade 2020)
“Untitled (Grand Verbalizer What Time Is It?),” 2010. Collection of Ric Whitney & Tina Perry-Whitney
“Captured Letter from Paris,” 2019. Collection of JoAnn Hickey
“The End of My Beginning,” 2005