1 Comment
Kehinde WileyBrooklyn Museum: "The works presented in Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic raise questions about race, gender, and the politics of representation by portraying contemporary African American men and women using the conventions of traditional European portraiture. The exhibition includes an overview of the artist’s prolific fourteen-year career and features sixty paintings and sculptures.
Wiley’s signature portraits of everyday men and women riff on specific paintings by Old Masters, replacing the European aristocrats depicted in those paintings with contemporary black subjects, drawing attention to the absence of African Americans from historical and cultural narratives. The subjects in Wiley’s paintings often wear sneakers, hoodies, and baseball caps, gear associated with hip-hop culture, and are set against contrasting ornate decorative backgrounds that evoke earlier eras and a range of cultures. Through the process of “street casting,” Wiley invites individuals, often strangers he encounters on the street, to sit for portraits. In this collaborative process, the model chooses a reproduction of a painting from a book and reenacts the pose of the painting’s figure. By inviting the subjects to select a work of art, Wiley gives them a measure of control over the way they’re portrayed." Reaction: I fell in love with Wiley's artwork when I first saw his oil painting, Willem Van Heythuysen at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. His work stands out to me because of his use of juxtaposition in the combination of African Americans and European style. The paintings give me a "Renaissance" vibe along with black empowerment, which are the two things I admire in art. His unique color schemes also give the paintings a "pop" that would be hard for someone not to notice and admire. I loved having the experience of learning the history and significance of the Russian Fabergé Eggs. I remember my first time seeing the beautiful eggs about a year ago at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. I was surprised that Tsar Nicholas II only had to pay around 9,760 rubies ($130,542). I expected that an egg this rich and complex would cost almost 1 million dollars. Learning about Lillian Thomas Pratt’s purchase of the eggs was very interesting, and answered the question I always wondered about the eggs: “If the eggs are significant to Russian history and culture, why are they in Virginia?"
One part of the symposium that really caught my attention was the architecture student who came and talked about his experience. It was very helpful to hear his transparent take on architecture in college. I now have an insight of what to look forward to when I go to college and major in Architectural Engineering. Sharing the hard parts about the course, such as confusing assignments, was also very helpful because now I know what to look out for and what to expect. I also found it interesting how almost everyone shared that one of their favorite parts of art school is being challenged and having more opportunities for creativity.
|