Kehinde Wiley: Columbus

Essays by Joe Houston, Brian Keith Jackson, Franklin Sirmans, Emil Wilbekin. Kehinde Wiley’s work incorporates a range of artistic vernaculars directly from art historical references to a looser, more hybridized concept of modern culture ranging from French Rococo to today’s urban streets. He collapses history and style into a unique contemporary vision. Wiley describes his approach as “interrogating the notion of the master painter, at once critical and complicit,” and he creates large scale figurative paintings that “quote historical sources and position young black men within that field (of power).” The vividly colorful paintings, often adorned with ornate gilded frames, depict young black men in urban dress, and posed in a manner reminiscent of Renaissance artists such as Tiepolo and Titian, and surrounded with a barrage of Baroque or Rococo decorative patterns. Using models from the city of Columbus and inspiration from the figures in the paintings at the Columbus Museum, these p