ART REVIEW

Hwa Young Caruso, Ed. D. & John Caruso, Jr., Ph. D.
Art Review Co-Editors

KEHINDE WILEY'S EXHIBITION AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM: 
"PASSING AND POSING"

During Black History Month every February, a series of public events are offered to recognize and celebrate the contributions of African Americans to American life and history. The Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York, scheduled several Black History Month events this year.  One of the most striking events was the first solo exhibition of oil paintings by Kehinde Wiley, a 27-year-old Black artist from California, who lives in New York City. Wiley’s exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, entitled “Passing/Posing,” was on display from October 2004 through February 2005. It contained eighteen large scale (6’ x 8’) oil paintings. [paragraph 1]

Wiley was born and raised with six siblings in South Central Los Angeles. At age eleven he began to paint when his mother enrolled him in art classes through which he went on field trips to museums in the Los Angeles area. He was attracted to and influenced by the grandiose and ornate 17th and 18th century portraits of English and French aristocrats in the San Marino Huntington Library collection. Wiley went on to major in art and completed a BFA at the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA at the Yale University School of Art in 2001. Soon after graduation, he was walking in Harlem where he picked up a paper containing a police mug shot of a young Black male. The mug shot painfully reminded Wiley of multiple media images of powerless young Black male fugitives, rather than of powerful, even mythic, portraits of Black heroic leaders. Wiley put the wanted poster on his studio wall and it became an inspiration for his Passing/Posing series of heroic paintings displayed at the Brooklyn Museum. [paragraph 2]

Wiley paints large scale portraits of young African American men in hip hop street dress posed like European nobles. His decorative pieces encased in elaborate frames resemble portraits of nobles and saints by Renaissance and Baroque masters. Wiley searches the streets in New York City looking for potential models. He meets young Black males and pays them to come to his studio in Chelsea to pose in heroic photos. The amateur models examine art books, select objects and assume heroic poses that Wiley incorporates into his large scale portrait paintings. [paragraph 3]

Portrait painting was a traditional art form for the privileged in many cultures and was intended to make social statements about the subject’s status and possessions, which include family, home, clothing, jewelry, horses, pets, food and weapons. Museums and art collections contain thousands of portraits that blend and associate individuals with mythological, religious, historical and socio-literary roots. Many contemporary artists of color have redefined and deconstructed portraiture by incorporating popular themes of athletic achievement or entertainment popularity. This confluence of iconic images and themes elevates social aspirations and generalizes the achievements of the few to become the fantasies of many aspiring to fame and social glory. [paragraph 4]

Wiley began his “Passing/Posing” series by incorporating young Black males in hip hop street clothing into Baroque neo-classical portraits in ornate gilded frames. His heroic homeboys in athletic gear stand proudly, gazing at the viewer or across the horizon in meditative poses. These young Black men display a sense of power and authority. Their street culture and popular athletic clothing become the costumes of aristocratic photos converted into oil paintings. Wiley’s portraits take Black males off the dangerous streets and place them in serene and idyllic settings surrounded by abstract floral and ornamental designs. The colors are almost pure, raw, and soft, and the heroic figures are intertwined with decorative Islamic, Celtic and European heraldic motifs that include flowers, vines, lattice-work, and fertility symbols. [paragraph 5]

These decorative portraits in window shaped frames examine how African American males perceive and represent themselves in contemporary culture after Wiley redefines them. The stereotype of a weary African American struggling in life is replaced with young males using gang signs in saintly gestures as in his work Assumption (the second painting). Their individual identity is a combination of the sacred and the secular glorified by being placed in a heavenly blue environment. These Black males stand proudly surrounded by garlands intricately woven into a luxurious silk fabric pattern much like golden filigree. The intense colors create the optical effect of a visual vibration.  Thousands of silver colored sperm, like tiny fish, add a mass of movement in an otherwise static pose in St. Remi 1843 (the last painting). The feet of his young Black heroes are undefined and melt into the background which creates an effect of godlike floating. Wiley paints Black youth as the symbol of hope in a spiritual reception. They have been transformed into saints on earth standing in a heavenly bliss of adulation that sports heroes receive like the heavenly gaze in St. Clement of Padua (the first painting). [paragraph 6]

These young Black men pass and pose like religious and noble leaders. They go through a transition and transformation as they pass and pose – pass into an early death as victims of urban crime and pose as reincarnated athletic stars and leaders. Wiley’s elegantly posed portraits elevate them into a heroic status to serve as role models for other African Americans. [paragraph 7]