One simple mug shot. A crumbled up mug shot of an African American man tossed away on the streets of New York led nationally renowned artist Kehinde Wiley to change the way African Americans are depicted in art, and draw attention to the absence of people of color in art history.
One simple mug shot. A crumbled up mug shot of an African American man tossed away on the streets of New York led nationally renowned artist Kehinde Wiley to change the way African Americans are depicted in art, and draw attention to the absence of people of color in art history.
“He took that and put it up in his studio and he was really thinking about young black men, and how they’re portrayed and who controls their image,” said Sarah Eckhardt, Coordinating Curator for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts which will debut Wiley’s highly-regarded “A New Republic” exhibit this weekend.
Wiley is one of the country’s leading African American contemporary artists whose work raises questions of race, gender and politics.
His upcoming exhibit, “A New Republic” features nearly 60 of his paintings, stained glass, and sculpture that portray modern African American men and women in today’s clothing, posing in heroic poses, referencing Old Masters paintings.
The exhibition spans the artist’s fourteen-year career and blends the modern with the traditional.
Pictures of young African American men dressed in contemporary clothing such as sneakers, hoodies, jeans and baseball caps replace historical aristocrats and other subjects such as Napoleon Bonaparte, and Saint Remi using the conventions of 18th and 19th century European portraits.
Many are set against a floral, ornate background which present a large contrast, but fuse the two together in a wonderful way. Wiley’s “A New Republic” is bold, vibrant and makes a statement that no one can possibly ignore.
For his subjects, Riley uses a process called “street casting” he started in the early 2000s during his residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem according to Eckhardt.
“He set out to develop a dignified way to show a variety of people that he was meeting and finding on the street,” said Eckhardt. “He would ask if they would come to the studio and pose in the clothing of their choosing and work with them to choose a masterpiece from art history. They would take a photograph, and he would paint that.”
In addition to his paintings of men representing historical and religious figures, “A New Republic” also features works from his World Stage series, which looks at people from different cultures in other countries.
After setting up a studio in Beijing around 2006, the artist traveled to Africa, France, India, Israel, Jamaica, Haiti and other countries capturing men’s portraits.
“He switched his source material from the portraiture and European history painting and he started looking at communist propaganda from the 50s and 60s,” Eckhardt said. “He was especially interested in the French colonial countries in Africa then started going all over the globe.”
In 2012, Wiley started painting women, some of which are also featured in VMFA’s upcoming exhibit and for these paintings, the artist decided to depict them in a bit of a different manner than the men in his paintings.
“He realized a lot of the society women in portraits of places like the Louvre, had gowns designed for them so he decided instead of them coming in their everyday clothing he had Givenchy design dresses for these women that are based somewhat on the original source paintings, but also on the women themselves.”
Born in 1977, Wiley grew up in Los Angeles and earned his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2001, he received his MFA from Yale University and his collections hang on the walls of more than 40 museums. He currently resides in New York.
This exhibit began in Brooklyn last year where it was organized by the Brooklyn Museum and has gone to Seattle, and Texas.
This will be the first major collection of Wiley’s for the VMFA, but not his first piece of art. The museum was one of the first in the country to acquire his “Willem van Heythuysen” painting (pictured below) in 2006, adding to their vast collection of 21st century artists and their long–term goal of acquiring more African American art.
This past March, the VMFA acquired the entire life’s work of Richmond African American photographer Louis Draper.
Kehinde Wiley’s “A New Republic” will open to the public this Saturday, June 11th and run until Sept 5. It’s free for VMFA members, $12 for adults $10 for seniors 65+, and students. An illustrated catalogue published by the Brooklyn Museum and DelMonico Books will accompany the exhibit and is available for purchase in paperback and hardcover.
Check out the video for the upcoming “A New Republic” exhibit below:
