Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley (born February 28, 1977) is an American portrait painter who specializes in baroque-inspired portraits of African-American subjects, with some of which featuring macabre and negative depictions of white people^[1]. In 2017, former President Barack Obama commissioned Wiley to paint his own portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, a choice which was highly criticized given Wiley's history of creating racist paintings.

Obama Portrait[edit]

Widely mistaken for the official Presidential portrait of Obama, Wiley's portrait for the Smithsonian features the former President seated in a wooden chair and superimposed over a background of various foliage meant to represent Obama's heritage and past residency. The portrait was unveiled by Obama and Wiley at the National Portrait Gallery on February 12, 2018, along with Amy Sherald's portrait of Michelle Obama. ^[2]

The portrait was unveiled to much fanfare and praise in the mainstream media, with commentators and journalists saluting the work as "powerful" and praising Wiley for his depictions of Obama and other black Americans^[3].

Racist Artwork[edit]

Prior to painting Obama's portrait, Wiley was little-known outside of art circles in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, with his 2005 painting "Napoleon Leading the Army Across the Alps" (an African-American take on "Napoleon Crossing the Alps") perhaps being his most famous work. With the unveiling of the Obama portrait, however, many came to find that Wiley had twice painted depictions of black women beheading white women, with both paintings having been completed in 2012. While this fact caused significant controversy on social media, mainstream news sources either ignored it or attempted to make excuses^[4], pointing out that the paintings were meant to depict Judith beheading Holofernes in the Bible, a tidbit which does not explain why "Holofernes" is depicted as a woman and caucasian. Furthermore, Wiley himself has referred to the beheading paintings as "kill whitey" paintings^[5]. It is not clear how Obama became aware of Wiley's art, nor his opinions on Wiley's racist past.

Kehinde Wiley and Liberal Hypocrisy[edit]

Kehinde Wiley's paintings (and their subsequent public response) can be seen as illustrating liberal hypocrisy in at least two different ways. For one, they show the mainstream media's willingness to ignore blatant racism (the "kill whitey" paintings) when it doesn't help to further their agenda, and they also showcase a willingness to ignore what would have otherwise been considered "cultural appropriation" (Wiley's revisionist depictions of people of other cultures and ethnicities as conforming to his own, as in the case of the Napoleon painting).

References[edit]

1. ↑ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kehinde-wiley-painted-black-woman-severed-head/
2. ↑ https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/12/politics/obama-portrait-unveiling/index.html
3. ↑ https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/kehinde-wiley-on-painting-president-obama-michael-jackson-and-the-people-of-ferguson
4. ↑ https://indyweek.com/news/recent-backlash-kehinde-wiley-s-work-ncma-gets-wrong-art-s-past-present/
5. ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/obama-portrait-painterkehinde-wileys-past-work-depicted-black/