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| Kehinde Wiley, Shantavia Beale II, 2012. Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in. (152.4 x 121.9 cm). Collection of Ana and Lenny Gravier. © Kehinde Wiley. (Photo: Jason Wyche). Image via brooklynmuseum.org. |
Kehinde
Wiley: A New Republic
February 20 – May 24, 2015
Morris A.
and Meyer Schapiro Wing and Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, 5th
Floor
200
Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn,
NY
Text |
Johnny Magdaleno for The New York Times
Published
February 19, 2015
Barely two
months in, it has already been a big year for the Brooklyn-based painter
Kehinde Wiley. Last month, the artist received a 2014 U.S. State Department
Medal of Arts; and this week, he prepares for his first museum retrospective,
“A New Republic,” which will open at the Brooklyn Museum on Friday. Throughout
his career, Wiley’s pieces have canonized the people they portray: Descendants
from Africa, Haiti, Jamaica and elsewhere, depicted along with emblems of
culture and identity. “My work, for a long time, has focused on the ideals that
we celebrate in America and abroad,” he says. Many of his paintings outsource
their influence from popular movements that predate the 19th century, like
Flemish portraiture from the Northern Renaissance. But instead of using dark
colors to create a sense of severity or authority, Wiley’s portraits explode
with energy and color — particularly in their use of clothing, which occupies a
central role in his work. “Fashion is fragile and fleeting,” he notes. “But it
is also an indicator for the cultural and social appetites for a nation.”
Occasionally,
that fashion is high street style, like the young man sporting a bronze-tipped
pompadour in 2014’s “Saint Paul”; at other times, it’s more casual, such as
“The Marchioness of Santa Cruz” from Wiley’s “Haiti” series (also 2014), in
which a woman in denim and white t-shirt lies like royalty on a thin-cushioned
chaise lounge, her weight resting on one elbow as it presses into a rolled bath
towel. In every case, as seen in the portraits among the 56 pieces on view in
“A New Republic,” Wiley’s backgrounds compete with his subjects to command the
most attention, though neither overpowers the other. With their growing vines,
blooming flowers and Rococo-influenced doily patterns, it’s as if the
surrounding world rises to celebrate the people in focus. But this balance is
intentional, a technique to make his work comprehensive. “The background must
capture a myriad bed of cultures and practices,” says Wiley, “because
increasingly, the people who populate my paintings are from all over the
world.” Despite their origins, each subject is imbued with a similar sense of
majesty marked by lifted chins and puffed-up chests, like the antiquated,
Caucasian kings and queens portrayed in galleries and museums across the world.
In
addition to the large-scale portraits that have made Wiley famous, five bronze
busts will also be on display, their subjects sculpted with the same prideful
body language as those in his portraits. The retrospective also includes eight
selections from his “Memling” and “Icon” series: paintings that are similar in
style to the others, but created on a smaller scale, and framed by shrine-like
panels that invite the viewer to lean in and, as Wiley says, “possess the
object with his or her eyes and physical presence.”
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