We were sorry to have missed this exhibition as it opened at the Brooklyn Museum the day after we left New York in February. A New Republic was a snapshot of artist Kehinde Wiley's 14 year career and included 60 paintings and sculptures. A rising star in the art world (you can see several of his oversized pieces gracing the background of Fox's hit TV show Empire), Wiley's subjects are famously recruited by open audition or street casting. It is a truly collaborative process with models being asked to choose a reproduction of a painting from a book which is then re-enacted. In this manner, subjects are given a measure of control over the manner in which they are portrayed by Wiley.
By depicting contemporary African American men and women in settings more commonly associated with traditional European portraiture, Wiley's art is intended to raise questions about race, gender and the politics of representation.
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| Images | Kehinde Wiley |
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