"After Abstract Expressionism, a lot of artists haven't been trained to manipulate material. Instead they've been taught that what they're supposed to manipulate is concepts or ideas. To me, this is absolutely responsible for a lot of weaknesses in artists' production at this point. I'm an advocate of a return to very fundamental, very basic studio practices, which mean that you first spend a lot of your time simply trying to figure out what materials will do, and in the progress of figuring that out, you figure out what to do with them" (Kerry James Marshall in conversation with Arthur Jafa, 2000)