"Rubin Singleton" (2008)Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: Africa: Lagos ~ Dakar
New Intuitions: Leslie Hewitt, Tanea Richardson and Saya Woolfalk: Artists in Residence, 2007-08
Studio Museum Harlem
(closed; July 17 - Oct. 26, 2008)
As related in his memoir "Dreams From My Father," Barack Obama was abandoned at the age of 2 by his Kenyan father. He only saw his father again once, when he was 10. The Brooklyn painter Kehinde Wiley, similarly abandoned, was left by his Nigerian father even before he was born. Wiley never knew him or saw a photo of him until, as a 20-year-old art student, he traveled to Lagos, managed to find him and even painted a few portraits.
Ten years later, Wiley returned. By then, he was successful artist, launched into prominence after a post-Yale MFA stint as artist-in-residence Studio Museum, where he got noticed for his oil portraits of black men he met on 125th Street, near the museum, done in a formal realist style indebted to the greats of the 18th Century and 19th Century. Wiley really broke out after being commissioned by VH1 to do portraits of hip-hop royalty. Images such as Ice-T as Napoleon in the style of Tiepolo are unforgettable -- mashups of high and low, black and white, past and present that are highly artificial, but hold an ironic meaning. Jarring juxtapositions that make sense. On his return trip to Africa, he was there for the second in his "World Stage" series of internationally-themed works. The first go-round involved posing young black males from Brooklyn in poses taken from Mao-era Chinese propaganda posters. It was a tentative step, really a fakeroo since he never had to leave his borough (the paintings were shown last year in Wisconsin at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center).
The new series -- 10 canvasses all dated 2008 -- takes the international idea more seriously. He traveled to Lagos and Dakar and posed models, this time based on the body language of post-colonial public statues there. The statues, photos of which can be seen in the exhibition catalog, like the Mao paintings, are only used as a starting point. With "On Top of the World," the figure in the source sculpture flashes a peace sign; in Wiley's painting, it has become a black power fist. And in "Place Soweto (National Assembly)," the sculpture shows man and a woman, their two hands touching. In Wiley's it is two young men. Their contact now has homoerotic meaning.
Wiley is gay, and homoeroticism is a part of his art, but not in any explicit or political way. At least one writer noted that his way of finding models on the street is much like gay cruising. But just going on the paitings, there are are signs of a subtle sensuality. First, most of the models look like, well, models. They're good looking. And their unsmiling visage and steady gaze at the view, often have an objectifying feel more more akin to something you'd see in a fashion spread. This is especially the case of "Rubin Singleton," which shows a model sporting a pastel camo hoodie that looks more Lower East Side than Lagos.Wiley does an interesting thing with these portraits -- he adds a backdrop of brightly colored decorative pattern -- flowers, birds, it's feminine but bold. Look again and you'll notice that the pattern is partially covering the subjects, consuming them like some kind Little Shop of Horrors. The effect is to flatten and lose context. It also amps up the visual appeal. These paintings really pop.
But it begs the question: Why travel to Africa if many of the paintings could have been done in Brooklyn? Why pose the models after post-colonial statues if this isn't apparent in the works?
Part of the answer is given by Wiley in a short documentary video displayed on the museum's second floor. The artist hints that he wants to subvert any false ideas about his subjects. Visiting Africa, he was acutely aware of the tendancy to belive you are observing an objective, anthropolitical truth. His antidote is to heighten the viewer's awareness of artifice, what he calls "a type of non-truth." Wiley makes a point of discussing how the photos taken in Africa are processed in Photoshop, their colors heightened. We can see the "stage" of his "World Stage" paintings as a kind of theatrical remove. As one essay in the catalog points out, he does not seek to heroize, but to expose our impulse to heroize.While some of these weighty concepts seem like afterthoughts, the art itself is good stuff. I'm happy with where Wiley's going -- he's maturing into a style that's less gimicky. The next series will focus on Brazil and will be on view in Los Angeles next year.
Wiley got his start as an Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum (other luminaries include David Hammons and Kerry James Marshall), so it's only appropriate for three to be a concurrent group show of the program's current crop, three women: Leslie Hewitt, Tanya Richardson and Sarya Woolfalk.
Common themes include quests for identity, body issues, emptiness and loss. Leslie Hewitt makes ramshackle architectural assemblages using raw wood, drywall, glass and old photos (see image at right). They would have fit in at this year's Whitney Biennial (not a compliment; my review here). Tanya Richardson makes fabric sculptures of oozing organic forms that speak a language of spiderwebs and worms. She also makes politically charged works about race, such as one that is a screen-capture of the Web site blackandmaleinamerica.org showing an error message reading "temporarily unavailable." Sarya Woolfalk creates a childlike Teletubby world of day-glow alien beings on a quest through a land of Louise Bourgeois-like hermaphroditic shapes.
