Art Fact Friday #2 Kehinde WileyAugust 4th 2023

This Friday I want to highlight one of my favorite contemporary artists and influences; Kehinde Wiley is best known for his paintings of African Americans in naturalistic Old Master paintings. Born February 28, 1977 in Los Angles CA, to a Nigerian father and African American mother; he showed  enthusiasm in after-school art classes. Wiley earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1999, and a MFA from Yale University. in 2001. Wiley started his residence in 2001 at the Studio Museum of Harlem. Wiley was inspired by discarded NYPD arrest photos of a black man, and their harsh representation impacted his series “ Conspicuous Fraud” and “Smile. “Passing/Posing” Wiley’s  first solo exhibition opened in 2002 at the Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, IL. Wiley appropriated images of heroes, prophets, and saints in paintings. He replaced subjects young black men dressed in trademarked hip-hop clothing.

In 2005 VH1 commissioned to paint portraits of the VH1 Hip-Hop Honors honorees. In his series 2005 “Rumors of War” the Artist supplanted heroic equestrians, painted by Diego Velázquez and Peter Paul Rubens, with modern men in athletic attire and Timberland boots, but their original titles were preserved. In “Down” 2008 Wiley recreated postures displayed in such works as Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Dead Christ in the Tomb and Auguste Clésinger’s Woman Bitten by a Serpent, with grand-scale figures. Wiley utilized unplanned encounters to find his models he called this“street casting”. The Artists assistants applied the intricate backgrounds. Wiley always painted the figure, following the traditional hierarchy of a classical studio. Wiley would take his  practice from Beijing in (2006) to Nigeria and Senegal (2008), Brazil (2009), India and Sri Lanka (2010), Israel (2011), France (2012), Jamaica (2013), and Haiti (2014) with his “The World Stage”paintings. Wiley began to include women as subjects in his series “An Economy of Grace” shown in 2012. Wiley commissioned Riccardo Tisci creative director of Givenchy to create the costumes.

In 2015 Wiley partnered with the Brooklyn Museum of Art for the exhibition “Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic,” which documented his 14-year career. Wiley examined historic narratives of the Western art by replacing images of white men of historical notoriety with contemporary men of color who simulated the poses of the original masterworks. Wiley redefined artworks by such Master paintier as Titian, Sir Anthony van Dyck, and Édouard Manet. Wiley transformed high-art traditions with his immaculate and elegant methods. In 2015 Wiley was the recipient of the 2014 National Medal of Arts.

The National Portrait Gallery announced that Wiley and Amy Sherald would paint the official portraits of former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama In 2017. Wiley's portrait of President Barack Obama was unveiled in February 2018. The portrait was the first representation of an African American and first painting by an African American in the presidential portrait collection.

In 2019 the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond commissioned Wiley to create a bronze sculpture “Rumors of War” was released in Times Square , New York City. The work is reminiscent of equestrian forms used in Confederate statues that occupy Richmond’s Monument Avenue. Wiley replaced the image of mounted soldier,with an African American man with locks wearing jeans and Nike high-tops. Wiley’s next public work, “Go” (2021), was chosen to be a permanent part if Penn Station’s concourse expansion in New York City.

Wiley currently resides in New York and Beijing, China. Wiley also founded a multi-disciplinary residency program for visual, literary and film artists, “Black Rock Senegal”.

Source:https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kehinde-Wiley

Source:https://nmaahc.si.edu/kehinde-wiley#:~:text=1977)-,Kehinde%20Wiley%20(b.,in%20after%2Dschool%20art%20classes.

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