Kehinde Wiley

As long as we’re on the subject of art, I must mention another amazing exhibit I recently visited, Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence, at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. (through Oct. 15)

Kehinde Wiley is best known for his presidential portrait of Obama. (not in the show)
You can view this painting at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

Wiley graduated from Yale University’s School of Art in 2001. Since then, he has put that formal education to use. However, he has turned it on its head.

Historically, Western portraiture has showcased white men and women posing in elegant clothes, opulent settings, and positions of power and grace.

Wiley challenges our cultural concepts of power, legitimacy, and beauty by utilizing classical settings in his art but substituting African American subjects clothed in modern street clothes and posed in vulnerable positions.

His paintings are often enormous. As are some of his bronze sculptures.

While others are not.

In fact, his play with scale contributes to the effect and conversation of his work.

Wiley’s use of floral backgrounds in his paintings adds to the dichotomy. I confess I don’t know anything about the language of flowers. I’m sure his choices hold meaning as well. But the mere decision to place a “reposed” human being in front of a lush, beautiful, alive setting begs the question, “Is this person sleeping, or is she dead?” “And if she’s dead, how did she die?”

“She’s young?” “Her expression is peaceful?”

But there’s no sense of peace walking through the exhibit.

Oh, and then there are these roots growing up around his legs. “No, he is not sleeping.”

One does not sleep in this position.

The exhibit is carefully curated so that the final piece viewed is this.

Most, if not all, of these works, were created by Wiley during lockdown. At the same time a national movement of Black Lives Matter was taking root, Wiley made this Civil War-esque statue. It’s provocative and a fitting way to end the journey through the exhibit.

But I guarantee it won’t end the journey through your mind.