NEWS
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Kehinde Wiley X Spike Lee
Interview Magazine | By Kehinde Wiley and Alexandria Symonds
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THE BLACK DIASPORA, VIA ISRAEL
The Economist | By G.M.
“There is something visually arresting about these large, bright, brash works. They are conspicuously hip and readily marketable; his designs now appear on skateboards and Puma trainer shoelaces, both of which are for sale in the gift shop. But his work can lack context. His young Israeli subjects don’t appear to have any connection to or relationship with the ancient artefacts they are paired with. What are we to learn about these men we’re gazing at? The answer is far from clear.”
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THE ART OF FASHION
VOGUE DAILY | by Emily Holt
“Riccardo Tisci is incredibly gifted,” writes artist Kehinde Wiley from his studio in Beijing, where he’s putting the finishing touches on “An Economy of Grace,” a series of African-American female portraits inspired by historical paintings that will be shown at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York (opening this weekend).
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KEHINDE THE FIRST
GQ | BY WYATT MASON
At 36, he is already one of the art world’s brightest lights, painter of portraits that borrow heavily from the old to make something blazingly new. Where once there were only white kings and their queens, Kehinde Wiley inserts the “brown faces” long absent from Western art. Rappers, athletes, kids off the street. Wyatt Mason hangs with Wiley as he hits the beaches and markets of North Africa, handpicks his subjects, and transforms them, step by inspired step, into an ambitious new series of paintings. This is how a masterpiece is made
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INTERVIEW WITH M.I.A
Interview Magazine | By M.I.A
M.I.A.: I wanted to ask you about the progression of your work these days. How are you finding it? Because New York is a really different place to make art compared to what it used to be.
KEHINDE WILEY: I came here almost 10 years ago now. It was my first experience of making a life for myself outside of school, and my career kind of snowballed at once. So there’s really not much in the way of an alternative experience for me to contrast it with.
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KEHINDE WILEY ON HIS FIRST UK SOLO SHOW
THE EVENING STANDARD | by Ben Luke
“I’m in love with the tricks of coaxing paint into form, and making something that’s almost a type of Trojan horse,” he says. “Where it’s striking, it’s vibrant and you think only later about some of the broader cultural or political implications, some of the power juxtapositions. All those things are important but I don’t want to bore myself, or anyone else for that matter, with making work that’s simply didactic.”