Kehinde Wiley

Count Potocki, 2008


Support Army and Look after People, 2007

Kehinde Wiley is a gay painter based in New York. Known for his paintings of contemporary African-American men in in poses taken from the annals of art history, he has also gained recent acclaim for his heroic portraits which address the image and status of young African-American men in contemporary culture.

How do we make sense of his Kehinde's work? Identify intertextuality in Kehinde's work

Like a book, his work is a 'refined and re-written' of those of great portraitist such as Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian and Ingres. Combining the traditional portrait style painting with the contemporary style figures such as the 'red flag' of the Bloods gang and how the 'gangster' dressed. This ranges from French rococo, Islamic architecture and West African textile design to urban hip–hop. The works shown such as the two with horses is kind of similar to the Titian ' State portrait of Emperor Charles V, 1548' in which you see a link between the two. This is also seen in the first picture with the Red Flag Gangster, and with Ingres 'Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne, 1806' painting, have kind of a similar layout style and also very similar when it comes to the person in the picture as well. The red flag gangster could also be seen as the modern day street 'Napoleon' in conquest for a street.


Kehinde's work relates to this weeks Post Modern theme "PLURALISM" re-read page 50 and discuss how the work relates to this theme?

What Kehinde is trying to do is to put the 'black man' in a position of which it goes against with the typical 'White, male, middle/high class, western' and somewhat, tries to put it on the same level to be equal as the 'white man'. In what, he places the typical black man in the same position of what a white man would be as such, the very 'my little pony' like horse and the red thing he has on his back. With the last painting of his ' Support Army and Look after People, 2007 ' kind of looks like it points out 'queer politics'. Being gay himself, he knows first hand how society depicts gays/lesbians today.




reference:
http://www.artnet.com/awc/kehinde-wiley.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehinde_Wiley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres