The works presented in Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic raise questions about race, gender, and the politics of representation by portraying contemporary African American men and women using the conventions of traditional European portraiture. The exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum includes an overview of the artist’s prolific fourteen-year career and features sixty paintings and sculptures.
The works presented in Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic raise questions about race, gender, and the politics of representation by portraying contemporary African American men and women using the conventions of traditional European portraiture. The exhibition includes an overview of the artist’s prolific fourteen-year career and features sixty paintings and sculptures.
Wiley’s signature portraits of everyday men and women riff on specific paintings by Old Masters, replacing the European aristocrats depicted in those paintings with contemporary black subjects, drawing attention to the absence of African Americans from historical and cultural narratives.
The subjects in Wiley’s paintings often wear sneakers, hoodies, and baseball caps, gear associated with hip-hop culture, and are set against contrasting ornate decorative backgrounds that evoke earlier eras and a range of cultures.
A Tour of the Kehinde Wiley Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum
Exhibition: Kehinde Wiley – A New Republic
February 20–May 24, 2015
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/kehinde_wiley_new_republic/#
Kehinde Wiley Studio | Brooklyn, NY
http://kehindewiley.com/
