Kehinde Wiley

Students will learn about painter Kehinde Wiley, whose work incorporates modern culture with classical portraiture.

BIG IDEA:

Stereotypes/Racism/Individual Identity

Essential Question(s):

How can artists reflect their life experiences through their art?

Resources:

Exploring the Self: 15 Identity Artworks

Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic

Brooklyn Museum

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.

Through the process of "street casting," Wiley invites individuals, often strangers he encounters on the street, to sit for portraits. In this collaborative process, the model chooses a reproduction of a painting from a book and reenacts the pose of the painting’s figure. By inviting the subjects to select a work of art, Wiley gives them a measure of control over the way they're portrayed.

The exhibition includes a selection of Wiley's World Stage paintings, begun in 2006, in which he takes his street casting process to other countries, widening the scope of his collaboration.

Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic

February 20–May 24, 2015

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibit...

License

Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)

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Kehinde Wiley Reimagines Classic Art | ABC News

ABC’s Mike Bickal speaks with renowned artist Kehinde Wiley about his unique interpretations of classic paintings that diversify and reimagine art history.

The Penitent Magdalene; Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (Italian, about 1487 - 1576); 1555–1565; Oil on canvas; 108.3 × 94.3 cm (42 5/8 × 37 1/8 in.); 56.PA.1; No Copyright - United States (http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/)

The Penitent Magdalene, Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (Italian, about 1487 - 1576), Culture: Italian, Date: 1555–1565, Medium: Oil on canvas, Dimensions: 108.3 × 94.3 cm (42 5/8 × 37 1/8 in.)

The subject of the penitent Mary Magdalene lifting her teary eyes to heaven gained great popularity in sixteenth-century Italy amongst aristocrats, religious figures and the wealthy middle class alike. Titian and his workshop created many copies and variations of this composition, at least seven of which are known today. This work is likely to have been executed with some workshop assistance. In this variation, the artist omits the skull which appears in other compositions, and instead depicts the Magdalene's Bible resting on a cloth-covered support. Such minor alterations to compositions were often made at the request of a patron, who wanted a work similar to one which already existed, but unique in some way.

The sacrament of Penance had important significance in Counter-Reformation spirituality, and artists frequently portrayed penitent saints as exemplars of religious fervor. Such works were meant to inspire a greater devotion at a time when Catholicism was being challenged by Protestant reform. On the other hand, the popularity of The Magdalene as a subject is also associated with her implied sexuality. Her passive gaze and partially naked body appealed to male viewers, for whom such paintings offered a moralizing context through which to engage with the sensuality of the female form. The Magdalene’s partly exposed breasts and long, flowing hair, would have held erotic connotations for the sixteenth-century viewer. Upon encountering one of Titian’s conceptions of the Penitent Magdalene, biographer Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) denied such sexual undertones, and declared that the picture “profoundly stirs the emotions of all who look at it; and, moreover, although the figure Mary Magdalene is extremely lovely it moves one to thoughts of pity rather than desire.”

X-rays of the painting reveal that the artist made numerous changes to the composition, known as pentimenti, suggesting that the composition was developed and altered during its execution.

Source: http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/519/titian-tiziano-vecellio-the-penitent-magdalene-italian-1555-1565/

After Titian's "The Penitent Mary Magdalen", Kehinde Wiley, 2009

Archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle fine art paper

30" x 24.5"

Source: https://www.kehindewiley.com/blacklight/Penitent_Mary_Magdalen.html

Source: https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2018.16

President Barak Obama

https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2018.16

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/president-barack-obama-kehinde-wiley/kgGqONkp0JVsCA?hl=en

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/barack-obama-presidential-portrait-kehinde-wiley-unveiled

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/barack-obama-portrait-kehinde-wiley-1222910

Artist

Kehinde Wiley, born 1977

Sitter

Barack Hussein Obama, born 4 Aug 1961

Date

2018

Type

Painting

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

Stretcher: 213.7 × 147 × 3.2 cm (84 1/8 × 57 7/8 × 1 1/4")

Frame: 234.3 × 167 × 10 cm (92 1/4 × 65 3/4 × 3 15/16")

Credit Line

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Gift of Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg; Judith Kern and Kent Whealy; Tommie L. Pegues and Donald A. Capoccia; Clarence, DeLoise, and Brenda Gaines; The Stoneridge Fund of Amy and Marc Meadows; Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker; Catherine and Michael Podell; Mark and Cindy Aron; Lyndon J. Barrois and Janine Sherman Barrois; The Honorable John and Louise Bryson; Paul and Rose Carter; Bob and Jane Clark; Lisa R. Davis; Shirley Ross Davis and Family; Alan and Lois Fern; Conrad and Constance Hipkins; Sharon and John Hoffman; Daniel and Kimberly Johnson; John Legend and Chrissy Teigen; Eileen Harris Norton; Helen Hilton Raiser; Philip and Elizabeth Ryan; Roselyne Chroman Swig; Josef Vascovitz and Lisa Goodman; Michele J. Hooper and Lemuel Seabrook III; The Skylark Foundation; Cleveland and Harriette Chambliss; Anna Chavez and Eugene Eidenberg; Carla Diggs & Stephen M. Smith; Danny First; Peggy Woodford Forbes and Harry Bremond; Stephen Friedman Gallery; Sean and Mary Kelly, Sean Kelly Gallery; Jamie Lunder; Joff Masukawa and Noëlle Kennedy Masukawa; Derek McGinty and Cheryl Cooper; Robert and Jan Newman; The Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. and Sandra O. Ocampo Family Trust; Julie and Bennett Roberts; Paul Sack; Gertrude Dixon Sherman; Michael and Mary Silver; V. Joy Simmons, MD; Andrea Lavin Solow and Alan P. Solow; John Sykes; Galerie Templon; Henry L. Thaggert III

Restrictions & Rights

Usage conditions apply

Copyright

Object number

NPG.2018.16

Exhibition Label

Forty-fourth president, 2009–2017

Barack Obama made history in 2009 by becoming the first African American president. The former Illinois state senator’s election signaled a feeling of hope for the future even as the U.S. was undergoing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. While working to improve the economy, Obama enacted the Affordable Care Act, extending health benefits to millions of previously uninsured Americans. Overseas, he oversaw the drawdown of American troops in the Middle East—a force reduction that was controversially replaced with an expansion of drone and aviation strikes. Though his mission to kill al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was successful, his pledge to close the Guantanamo prison went unrealized.

Artist Kehinde Wiley is known for his vibrant, large-scale paintings of African Americans posing as famous figures from the history of Western art. This portrait does not include an underlying art historical reference, but some of the flowers in the background carry special meaning for Obama. The chrysanthemums, for example, reference the official flower of Chicago. The jasmine evokes Hawaii, where he spent the majority of his childhood, and the African blue lilies stand in for his late Kenyan father.

44o presidente, 2009–2017

Barack Obama hizo historia en 2009 al convertirse en el primer presidente afroamericano de Estados Unidos. La elección del ex senador por el estado de Illinois generó un sentimiento universal de esperanza, aun cuando en ese momento Estados Unidos atravesaba su peor crisis financiera desde la Gran Depresión. A la vez que tomaba medidas para mejorar la economía, Obama promulgó la Ley del Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio, extendiendo los beneficios médicos a millones de ciudadanos que hasta entonces carecían de seguro de salud. En el ámbito exterior, dispuso la reducción de tropas estadounidenses en el Oriente Medio— reducción acompañada por una polémica expansión de los ataques con aviones y drones—. Aunque tuvo éxito en su misión de dar muerte al fundador de al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, su promesa de cerrar la prisión de Guantánamo quedó sin cumplir.

El artista Kehinde Wiley es conocido por sus vibrantes pinturas de gran formato donde presenta afroamericanos posando como figuras famosas plasmadas en el arte occidental. Si bien este retrato carece de esas referencias a la historia del arte, algunas de las flores del fondo tienen un significado especial para Obama. Los crisantemos, por ejemplo, son la flor oficial de Chicago. El jazmín evoca a Hawái, donde pasó gran parte de su niñez, y los lirios las africanaos representan a su difunto padre, natural de Kenia.

Data Source

National Portrait Gallery

Exhibition

America's Presidents (Reinstallation September 2017)

On View

NPG, West Gallery 210