Nope. Though sampling is most often coupled with paying or demanding royalties, it would be an unsightly accusation for oil portraitist Kehinde Wiley or Cody ChesnuTT’s "Headphone Masterpiece”. In Wiley’s case, royalty reigns in a more time-traveled manner, for Wiley’s samplings are idealistic, even trite, when juxtaposed against the measure of status-black men posing, posturing on canvas. As inflated, stereo-hyped or subversive as Wiley’s portraits may appear in physicality and media exposure, his work demands space, recognition and ignite dialogue about the privilege of portraits, and their subjects. These themes and other forms of Wiley’s media-friendly Baroque badass will be open for further discourse at a lecture on August 18 at the Portland Museum of Art. The lecture is hosted in conjunction with the exhibit, Kehinde Wiley, at the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art until August 19.

As a self-acclaimed anti-portrait painter, Wiley’s work reflects the European old-guard and Renaissance, depicting and replacing the subjects of pivotal artists such as Raphael and Titian-who are and were regarded as great-with young black men, forcing them in their mockingly astute dispositions, to demand the service of royalty. Well-regarded, received, and valued, (in 2005, his newest work weighed in at $20,000), Wiley’s brawny, beastie-teed subjects set on top of fleur-de-lys are alarming, but identifiably familiar. Akin to fine artist Yinka Shonibare’s fabricscapes, Wiley also ushers in pop fresh, by employing the classic or colonial. Passing/Posing, Wiley’s notorious exhibit, toys with mockery, while stamping similar seals likened to the hip-hop industry’s male domination.

Since Kehinde’s last Code Z spotting, his work has graced the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC; Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago; Cornell Fine Arts Museum in Orlando and John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, accompanied by a 40-page hardback, “Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage-China”. The book was published by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan; Roberts & Tilton in Los Angeles and the Deitch Projects in New York.

Kehinde Wiley’s collection at the Portland Art Museum includes themes of masculinity through effeminizing titles and postures of female prophets. Blue-blooded and boldly lavish, Wiley’s work addresses de facto, black male masculinity, hardly a singular note in a symphony of archetypes. And with Wiley’s continued media accolades, Code Z hopes Wiley’s wonders will retain their knighthood-because someone claimed that the Sun never sets on the Empire.

Print This Email This