30 AMERICANS Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC October 1st, 2011 - February 12th, 2012; Featuring Kehinde Wiley, Basquiat, more...

Sleep by Kehinde Wiley

Official Exhibit Website: corcoran.org/30americans

30 AMERICANS
October 1st, 2011 through February 12th, 2012
Washington, DC

30 Americans showcases works by many of the most important African American artists of the last three decades. This provocative exhibition focuses on issues of racial, sexual, and historical identity in contemporary culture while exploring the powerful influence of artistic legacy and community across generations.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

30 Americans is a wide-ranging survey of work by many of the most important African American artists of the last three decades. Selected from the Rubell Family Collection, the exhibition brings together seminal figures such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Hammons with younger and emerging artists such as Kehinde Wiley and Shinique Smith. Often provocative and challenging, 30 Americans focuses on issues of racial, sexual, and historical identity in contemporary culture. It explores how each artist reckons with the notion of black identity in America, navigating such concerns as the struggle for civil rights, popular culture, and media imagery. At the same time, it highlights artistic legacy and influence, tracing subject matter and formal strategies across generations.





P.S.>> Kehinde Wiley, who is one of my favorite African-American artists (and same gender loving [SGL]), is one of the 30 featured artists.

Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design
500 Seventeenth Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
Gallery Ph: (202) 639-1700
GOOGLE MAPS

The main entrance is located on Seventeenth Street between New York Avenue and E Street NW.

Hours
Wednesday 10AM – 5PM
Thursday 10AM – 9PM
Friday 10AM – 5PM
Saturday 10AM – 5PM
Sunday 10AM – 5PM

CLOSED Monday & Tuesday

Admission Pricing
Tickets for 30 Americans are now on sale.
Adults $10
Seniors (62+) / Students (with valid ID) $8
Children under 12 FREE
Members FREE

Kehinde Wiley: Black Light (A Truly OVER SIZED Behemoth Coffee Table Book) Plus Videos Of Kehinde, The Artist

The Front And Black Cover To Black Light
Man!! GOTTA LOVE THOSE LIPS!!!
JUST A BEAUTIFUL BRUTHA!

Hey Black Family,

I'm back with another entry on African-American artist Kehinde Wiley. The other latest book he has published is called Black Light which came out less than a year a go (around May 2009). Also, after the pictures of Kehinde's work below I have a handful of YouTube videos and you can get more ifo about Kehinde and his work process which is great. I WISH I WAS TALENTED PAINTER AND I COULD ASK SOME CUTE ASS BLACK MEN TO MODEL AND POSE SO I COULD DRAW THEM LATER ON. LOL!

The Black Light Book (center) Is Really Big In Comparison
To Kehinde's Other Published Books

First, let me say that Black Light is a huge book that measures approximately 12.5" wide x 15.25" in height. YES! A behemoth of a book that is truly a coffee table book.

As the name Black Light implies, a good portion or most of the book is dominated in black. The front and back of the hard cover is black with colorful leaves/flowers flowing at the top and bottom edges of the book. The dust jacket which surrounds the book is cleverly shorter by a 1/4" inch on the top and on the bottom, too. By doing this you can see the effect of the flowers flowing from the dust jacket and onto the blackness of the hard cover book itself. Really, really nice in my opinion. You have to hold the book in your possession to really appreciate this little artistic nuance. My photo above doesn't do it justice.

The black motif continues inside with all the essays type-set with a really nice silver text against a semi-matte or perhaps semi-gloss black pages. The book and pages are bound with high quality. You can see that the pages are bound with that tough string you would see on certain quality books and not bound with glue where it would loose its adhesion over time.

The meat of the book itself which graces Kehinde's work is magnificent!! The difference this time around with this particular work of art is that Kehinde did his usual due diligence of photographing the young blood Black males. But instead of painting portraits from the photograph he takes of hos models, he actually uses the actual photographs this time around and superimposes his signature flowers with the photos. I haven't read any part of the book's essays yet, so I don't know if the book explains the process of merging the photography of the male models with his painted flowers. (Adobe Photoshop perhaps?).

This quite frankly is Kehinde's best book of art by far because of the life like models using real photography, the shear size of the book itslef, the overall beautiful presentation of the black themed motif and the PRICE of the book which goes anywhere from $50 to $75!! LOL! TRUST ME!! IT'S WORTH EVERY SINGLE PENNY PAID!!

One of the most STRIKING things I LOVE about Kehinde's work in Black Light is that most if not all of the models' lips stand out with a glow of applied lip balm gloss. To me this accentuates the bruthaz in this book that much more. It's like I really wanna reach and out and KISS some of these bruthaz. Subjectively speaking, one could say it might adds a feminine quality to the bruthaz which breaks down those stereotypes or that "box" of what it is to be a man, manhood and/or masculinity. And there ain't nuthin' wrong with that! Yet, I really contend that the glossy lips are so pronounced that I suspect the lip balm gloss is another play on light... as in black light. Ultimately, I find it DAYUM sexy as all hell to me!!

So overall an excellent book which comes pre-shrink wrapped so that when you buy your copy you'll have it in mint condition.

So, enjoy the rest of the pics below and read a summary by the book's publisher. Also, I have included 5 different videos below of Kehinde, his work and work process with links to Amazon.com and his website where the books are available, too.

OK, NOW ONTO SOME BEAUTIFUL EYE CANDY! HAVE FUN...

The Portrait Is One Of My TOP FAVORITES In
Black Light

Brutha Man's Hat Style And Colors
Accents This Piece Quite Nicely

Black Light
Book Description

Los Angeles native and New York-based visual artist Kehinde Wiley has firmly situated himself within art history's portrait painting tradition. As a contemporary descendent of a long line of portraitists--including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Ingres, and others--Wiley engages the signs and visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic, and sublime in his representation of urban black and brown men found throughout the world. By applying the visual vocabulary and conventions of glorification, wealth, prestige, and history to subject matter drawn from the urban fabric, Wiley makes his subjects and their stylistic references juxtaposed inversions of each other, imbuing his images with ambiguity and provocative perplexity.

In Black Light, his first monograph, Wiley's larger-than-life figures disturb and interrupt tropes of portrait painting, often blurring the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation and the critical portrayal of masculinity and physicality as it pertains to the view of black and brown young men. The models are dressed in their everyday clothing, most of which is based on far-reaching Western ideals of style, and are asked to assume poses found in paintings or sculptures representative of the history of their surroundings. This juxtaposition of the "old" inherited by the "new"--who often have no visual inheritance of which to speak--immediately provides a discourse that is at once visceral and cerebral in scope.

Without shying away from the socio-political histories relevant to the subjects, Wiley's heroic images exhibit a unique modern style that awakens complex issues which many would prefer remain mute.

Black Light
Hardcover: 56 pages
Publisher: powerHouse Books (May 26, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1576874869
ISBN-13: 978-1576874868
Product Dimensions: 15.1 x 12.2 x 0.6 inches

Buy @ Amazon.com







Buy From Kehinde Wiley Studios Official Website
(Look under PUBLICATIONS)



About the Author

Kehinde Wiley received his MFA from Yale University in 2001. Shortly after, he became an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He is represented by Deitch Projects, New York, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, and Roberts and Tilton, Los Angeles. His work has been exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of many museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York, the Miami Art Museum, Miami, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit.

Kehinde Wiley on The TODAY Show

Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley: World Stage >Africa

Kehinde Wiley On MUSE

Kehinde Wiley at Jeffrey Deitch, NYC (Nov 2008)





Check Out Kehinde Wiley's Official Website
(Click The Logo)

Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage > BRAZIL A New Book Release

Hey Black Family,

I was window browsing at Amazon.com and discovered that Kehinde Wiley's latest book of art The World Stage: Brazil just came out. I have been waiting for this book for some time and about to place an order for it.

Kehinde Wiley is a young African-America male artist whose body of work encapsulate young men of African descent from around the world. I just discovered this brutha'z work a year or so ago. And believe me when I tell you, you cannot appreciate brutha Kehind's work until you see it in an art gallery. I mean the epic scale of his paintings are ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE!! The average painting is about 20 feet long (landscape or portrait).

A little over a year ago on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 I put together a social event called BIG ROD's Brotherhood Gathering / Social Outing -> Kehinde Wiley: DOWN for Black SGL bruthaz at the Deitch Projects Art Gallery venue in Manhattan. I figured it'd be a great way for bruthaz to meet one another around the subject of art instead of bruthaz meeting at the same ol' tired club and bar scenes!! It was a small gathering, but we had a great time and we went around the gallery and discussed a lot of the different pieces of Kehinde's art and what it meant to us personally. I had so much FUN and glad bruthaz came out for that. A very different and refreshing social gathering for Black same gender loving men.

I LOVE Africentric art of the Diaspora and as a result of seeing the art exhibit twice I became a big fan of Kehinde's work. I try to pick up as many books as possible with his published works of art! I LOVE his choice of models which are just regular guys from different neighborhoods from around the world. I find a lot of his choice of men attractive and some of the works homo-erotic in nature; on he other hand some of his paintings are poignant in their portrayal of the demise of Black men. A lot of his works have eurocentric slant to them via some settings or stature because Kehinde emulates a lot of historically famous poses or settings; thus, he puts men of African descent in a context a lot of audiences of his work are not used to seeing and it creates an interesting dichotomy or juxtaposition.

So, if you haven't seen Kehinde's work in an art gallery, please keep an eye out for an exhibit in your area, or if you cna travel to a neighboring town or city, it is well, well worth it in my opinion. The brutha simply INCREDIBLE and is such a talent! Also, don't forget to pick up Kehinde Wiley's latest book of art Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage > Brazil The price is not a back-breaker and costs about $26.00. Be qool y'all!

ROD


Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage > Brazil

Book Description

This volume includes a selection of 22 new portrait paintings from Kehinde Wiley's multinational World Stage series, which has included Africa, China and India in the past and now moves on to Brazil. Immersing himself in the local culture of Rio de Janeiro, Wiley incorporates the people, history and aesthetic of the city in each of his monumental male portraits. His models, chosen from the favela slums, reflect historically significant public sculptures found within the city. Oversize tropical flowers in full bloom, appropriated from Brazilian textiles, inundate the work with saturated, brightly hued colors suggestive of Brazilian exoticism. Likening African-descended, young Brazilian males to canonical figures from Western art history as well as Brazilian public monuments, Wiley renders masculinity both august and noble. Text in English and Portuguese.

Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: Roberts & Tilton (January 31, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1427613737
ISBN-13: 978-1427613738
Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 0.5 inches

This Is One Of My TOP, TOP FAVORITES!!!!!
From Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage > BRAZIL,
This Is A Very Sensual Portrait
And Portrays Men of African Descent
In A Way In Which You Don't See
In The Mainstream Arts.
A REAL BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF ART!!

Definitely Another Favorite!!!
Brutha Kehinde Is So MAGNIFICENT!!

LOVE THIS PIECE, TOO!!

Kehinde's Signature Staple Is His Use of FLOWERS
In Most Of His Works