Kehinde Wiley- BLACK LIGHT@ Deitch Projects 9/3/09

Tonight folks!

Don't miss it!

September 03, 2009 — September 26, 2009
76 Grand Street, New York

Deitch Projects is pleased to present Black Light, an exhibition of photographs by Kehinde Wiley that thrusts the black male image, captured by means of light manipulation and digital technology, into focus. This shuffle of Wiley’s artistic process reveals an integral component of his studio practice rarely seen while remaining, uniquely, Kehinde Wiley portraiture.

Enlisting the technical tenor of Hype Williams’ hip-hop videos from the 90’s, Wiley saturates his consummately styled subjects of Fulton Street Mall pedigree— caps flipped backward, wearing gear of New York legend— in “super rapturous light”. To transcendental and beatific effect, such illumination proffers a new measure of Wiley’s technical abilities, so that the medium of photography propels each figure to the point before paint consumes canvas— the moment when flesh, at its three dimensional, truth-telling, reveals scars long ago enacted. Browned fingernails, questioning red-glazed eyes and voluptuously glossed, cigarette-charred lips heighten what, for some, is no longer visible: a vulnerable microcosm of our metropolis— a black light. Through the 17 photographs on display, Wiley produces an intimate study of embattled psychologies whose adherents are at once flawed and majestic, canonized and misunderstood.

The exhibition Black Light will be accompanied by, Black Light, a full-color book published by Powerhouse and will be available at Deitch Projects.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/09/kehinde_wiley_the_photographs.html#photo=1

Kehinde Wiley @ Studio Museum of Harlem

ARTmostfierce recommends taking a trip uptown, keep it real and check out Kehinde Wiley first solo show at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Sundays is free sponsored by Target. Go and see it and on the way out of the Studio Museum you will be able to find the latest knockoffs in fashion, perfumes and DVD movies...one stop shopping!
If you haven't got his limited edition beach towel go and get one at the bookstore . They are still available for sale!

Also if you never been to Harlem or to The Studio Museum don't be afraid ...it is about time you do know what you are missing!

The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar is Kehinde Wiley’s (b. 1977) first solo exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem and features ten new paintings from his multinational “The World Stage” series. Wiley is known for his stylized paintings of young, urban African-American men in poses borrowed from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European figurative paintings, a practice he started in the early 2000s while an artist in residence at the Studio Museum. Over the last two years, Wiley has expanded his project by living and working abroad; he temporarily relocates to different countries and opens satellite studios to become familiar with local culture, history and art. His “The World Stage” series is the result of these travels.

Wiley’s first trip was to China, where he placed his models in poses based on Chinese propaganda art from the Cultural Revolution. The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar, organized by Christine Y. Kim, features paintings from Wiley’s next stops, Senegal and Nigeria. For this exhibition, Wiley’s models mimic historical public sculptures from Dakar, Senegal, and Lagos, Nigeria. Wiley received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1999 and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2001 before becoming an artist in residence at the Studio Museum. His work is represented in the collections of several museums, including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Brooklyn Museum; Denver Art Museum and Virginia Museum of Fine Art. Recently, his work has been featured in exhibitions in Belgium, Los Angeles, Chicago and Ohio.

The Studio Museum in Harlem
144 West 125th Street, New York, New York 10027
tel 212.864.4500 fax 212.864.4800