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)

Patti LaBelle: A Valentine's Affair with the Lady of Soul @ BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music)

Click Da Pic To Buy Tickets From BAM's Website

Jammins Entertainment Presents
Patti LaBelle: A Valentine's Affair with the Lady of Soul

Sun, Feb 14 at 7pm

Spend Valentine’s Day with the incomparable Patti LaBelle, performing live. Known for her passionate stage performances and astonishing vocal versatility, LaBelle’s music ranges from classic rhythm and blues renditions to pop standards and spirituals. With special guests to be announced.

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11217

Ticket Prices: $79, 99, 125

This rental event is not presented by BAM. Regular BAM house and ticketing policies may not apply

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

"Let's Stay Together" - An Indepednent FilmSpending 2 Days Behind-The Scenes With ME (ROD)

Hey FAM,

Just wanted to share some behind-the-scene pics of a film shoot I've been working on the past year called Let's Stay Together by independent film filmmaker (writer/producer/editor/director) Joshua Bee Alafia.


JB (as I call him) and I met a little over a year at a Thelma Hull Performing Arts Center (THPAC) dance theater event through my friend Alex Smith who's the executive chairman of THPAC. JB was a videographer for the dance event and we traded business cards and then a short time later he gave me a call and we've been working together ever since on his film project and other film/commercial projects.

So, I wanted to share these pics with family and friends. I hardly ever have pics of myself as I'm mostly behind my own camera and friends complain I'm hardly in any pics at events.

Also it's about putting out into the universe what I like doing...

1st Interior Location (Brooklyn), Sunday, December 20th, 2009:
ME Chillin' With The Boom and Mic
As I wait For The Next Scene Set-up.
The Basement We Were In Was Little Chilly.





1st Interior Location (Brooklyn), Sunday, December 20th, 2009:
ME ad Actor Lamont Having a Light Laughter Moment.
We Both Admire Actor/Martial Artist Jim Kelly
From Back In Da Day...
Dooooooooyyy!!!
LOL!

2nd Interior Location (Harlem), Sunday, December 20th, 2009:
Writer/Director Joshua Bee Alafia (left) Directing A Scene
And ME Miking It

All the following pics are another day's shoot of Let's Stay Together on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 in Brooklyn, New York.

Setting Up The Spiritual Consul Scene (1)

Setting Up The Spiritual Consul Scene (2)

ME Takin A Break Inbetween The Intimate Bedroom Scene.
I Wasn't Feeling Good That Day So I Was Resting As Best I Could!
LOL!

In This Scene We Were Shooting A POV (Point-of-View) Shot
Of Director Joshua Bee Alafia's Character Parker

ME Get Ready To Mic A Scene

ME (Left) and Malik (Right) Setting A Scene Up

ME and Malik Chillin Inbetween Scene Set-ups

Pictured Left To Right:
Actor Tanda, ME (ROD), Writer /Director Joshua Bee Alafia,
and Artist Malik
Smile For The Camera As We Shoot A Hallway Scene

This Was An Unexpected Picture (My Eyes Wide, LOL!)
Taken Of Me As I Looked At Amma (Our Photographer).
I Usually Don't Like Too Many Pics Of Myself,
But This Was Actually A Qool Pic.
I LIKE IT!

Cast and Crew Pic (Pictured Left To Right):
Joshua, Malik, Tanda and ME (BIG ROD)

Cast and Crew Pic (Pictured Left To Right):
Our Resident Photographer Amma Jelani,
Joshua, Tanda and ME (BIG ROD)

Morehouse Whiz Kid Is Causing a Stir:13-Year-Old Dominates College

Morehouse Whiz Kid is Causing a Stir:
13-Year-Old Dominates College
By Boyce Watkins, PhD
Jan 13th 2010 7:45PM

At thirteen years of age, Stephen Stafford is causing quite a stir at Morehouse College. Stafford has a triple major in pre-med, math and computer science. Though he loves playing video games and playing his drum set, he is no typical teenager.

"I've never taught a student as young as Stephen, and it's been amazing," said computer science professor Sonya Dennis. "He's motivating other students to do better and makes them want to step up their game."

Stafford began his college career at the age of 11, after being home-schooled by his mother. Stafford's mother said that when Stafford began to teach her instead of being taught by her, she knew he needed to be in a college environment.

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. Stephen Stafford, in my opinion, represents exactly what black men are about: Intelligence, ambition and high academic achievement. This is not to disrespect men in other walks of life, but the truth is that you will never see Stephen Stafford's accomplishments promoted like a rap music video.

We must, as a community, applaud and uphold this young man. We must cheer for him as if he averages 40 points a game. We should converse about his achievements as if he had released a platinum hip-hop album. He should get the same respect as every linebacker, point guard or hip-hop artist in America.

Corporate America will not blow Stephen's trumpet, but I will. I also want all the other Stephen Staffords to make themselves seen. There are hundreds of thousands of Stephen Staffords out there who've been convinced by a culture of thuggery that they should do their best to hide their greatness. Rather than acing math class, they've been taught to measure grams and kilos or to memorize football playbooks that are 100 pages thick. Our young men can analyze the triangle offense in basketball and break down a nickel defense, but then become mentally deficient when it comes to doing algebra, science and social studies. The time for mediocrity is over, since education is the key to making your dreams come true. Sports only creates more nightmares.

Stephen will make more money than all of his athletic friends, because education produces economic empowerment. He will also have more personal freedom and professional fulfillment. He will live the black American dream, and I encourage all of you to make your own sons into the next Stephen Stafford.

The recipe for our kids is simple:

1) Spend as much time studying as you spend playing sports or working at fast food restaurant jobs.
2) Don't let anyone convince you that you can't achieve whatever you put your mind to.

Just by studying 4 to 5 hours per day (less than the number of hours they would put in to working a minimum wage job), almost any child in America can get a college degree and become a doctor, lawyer or whatever they want. It's actually just a matter of doing it. I've taught college for 16 years, and I can tell you that the term "college material" needs to be abolished. Every child is college material if they want to be. That's the truth.