Kehinde Wiley - Shop - Roberts Projects LA

Text by Brian Keith Jackson, Kimberly Cleveland, Ph.D.

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.

This publication accompanies the exhibition Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: Brazil at Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California (April 4 – May 30, 2009).

Published by Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California, 2009
Format: Hardcover, 8.75 x 11.5 inches / 64 pages / 40 color images
English and Portuguese
Distributed by D.A.P.
ISBN: 1427613737

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