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  • 2018-02-13 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Obama's Portraitist Paint an Image of a Black Woman Holding the Severed Head of a White Person? (en)
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  • The unveiling of former President Barack Obama's official portrait on 12 February 2018 also introduced many Americans to artist Kehinde Wiley for the first time as well, as opening the door to late-breaking controversy over some of Wiley's earlier work. Wiley, who has described his own visual style as bombastic, syrupy, and garish, is celebrated in the contemporary art world for his large-scale portraits of black and brown men and women striking heroic poses modeled on those of aristocrats in classic European paintings. Two portraits in particular, both of them modern takes on the biblical story of Judith beheading Holofernes and featuring elegantly-dressed black women brandishing the severed heads of white women, suddenly turned controversial in the context of Wiley's new role as a presidential portraitist. Images of the paintings were shared on social media with comments stating or implying that their content is racist: In a post on right-wing blog TheGatewayPundit.com, Kehinde Wiley was described as being known for and having a great fondness for painting black people beheading white people: It is not the case, however, that Wiley was famous for depicting black people killing white people before politically motivated commentators chose to make it so. Far from it. Of the scores of paintings the artist has produced, only the two based on the biblical beheading story depict such a scene. They generated very little controversy before Wiley's portrait of Obama was publicly unveiled. That the strong, couture-clad black females in the paintings are depicted in the immediate aftermath of decapitating white women is not incidental. As with many works of art, this was meant to be provocative (I think at its best what art is doing is setting up a set of provocations, Wiley said in a 2015 interview). A 2012 article on the web site of the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) supplies some needed context: It’s sort of a play on the 'kill whitey' thing, Wiley said in a 2012 interview with New York Magazine. The operative word is play. What is all too easy to miss on a cursory glance is the deeply conceptual nature of these works. We turn again to the NCMA's commentary: In contrast to the blunt literalism of those who prefer to interpret these paintings as a celebration of racial violence, art critic Walter Robinson writes that Wiley's take on Judith and Holofernes suggests, with a jovial brutality, that Judith would prefer to be done with white standards of beauty. If, as Wiley has said, his intent as an artist is to be provocative, he can consider himself successful. We reached out to Mr. Wiley for comment, but did not receive a reply. (en)
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