‘Tis the Winter of Our Discontent

By Sarah Balcombe

Just like nothing said summer like Alex Katz at the Neuberger, nothing says winter and particularly the winter of our discontent than Charles White- A Retrospective at MOMA.

With images such as Love Letter I 1971 (above) protesting the arrest of Black Panther activist Angela Davis and Birmingham Totem 1964  (below) referencing the 1963 Klu Klux Klan killing in Sixteenth St Baptist Church in Alabama, it is poignant to reflect on this year past, with so many racially motivated destructive acts carried out in places of worship across the United States.

White’s detailed illustrations and images of dignity, strength and suffering provided the narrative for many African Americans, empowering a social consciousness leading up to and during the Civil Rights Movement.

It possible that in his later years ,White was  influenced by artists such as Barkley L Hendricks whose Icon for My Superman 1969 (below) has a similar boldness and sense of irony to White’s Sound of Silence, 1978 (above).

Undoubtedly White’ s work paved the way for more recent artists, such as Kehinde Wiley whose decorative Alios Itzhak (The World Stage: Israel)

shows a remarkably similar palette, to White’s commemorative Banner for Willy J, 1976 (below).

During the cold snap be sure to catch the last few days of this stunning retrospective, listen to the accompanying soundtrack and podcasts by Harry Belafonte and Kerry James Marshall, then beat a hasty retreat downtown to the Whitney to check out Andy Warhol’s images of Mustard Race Riot, 1963 (below). It is no coincidence that this was the same year that Martin Luther King gave his “ I Have a Dream” speech.

A better tribute to Martin Luther King Day, I have yet to find.

 

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Obama’s Choice of Kehinde Wiley Just got Political

Kehinde Wiley Fishermen Upon a Lee-shore, in Squally Weather (Zakary Antoine), 2017 (above) Courtesy Kehinde Wiley and STEPHEN FRIEDMAN GALLERY, London

Barack Obama’s choice, last month, to appoint Kehinde Wiley to paint his portrait to be displayed at Washington’s National Portrait Gallery could hardly be more timely. As in Michelle Obama’s selection of  Amy Sherald as her artist,  Barack’s choice is current, progressive and as of last week, political.

Emma Amos Eva the Babysitter, 1973 (above) Courtesy Emma Amos, The Amos Family and  RYAN LEE GALLERY (Tate Modern)

Barkley L. Hendricks Icon for My Man Superman (Superman never saved any black people — Bobby Seale), 1969. Courtesy JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY

Kehinde Wiley is no Wadsworth Jarrell, Emma Amos (top), or Barkley L. Hendricks (above) whose Civil Rights Movement inspired artwork, mostly from the late 1960s and 1970s, was exhibited recently at London’s Tate Modern’s Soul of a Nation Art in the Age of Black Power. Yet Wiley is influenced by these predecessors and his work remains relevant in a similar way.  Less militant and of a different time, Wiley’s art not only addresses local issues, it also tackles global  tensions relating to predomnantly male identity and acceptance, across China, Brazil, India & Sri Lanka, Lagos & Dakar, and more recently, Israel. This was seen in Kehinde Wiley/The World Stage: Israel in New York’s Jewish Museum in 2012.

Kehinde Wiley Abed Al Ashe and Chaled El Awari (The World Stage: Israel), 2011(© Kehinde Wiley; Courtesy Roberts & Tilton, CA) (above)

Detail from Kehinde Wiley Kalkidan Mashasha (The World Stage: Israel), 2011               (All images courtesy the Jewish Museum.) (above)

Wiley’s portraits, often focusing on the male skin and body as art, are softened by textiles, pattern and a certain vulnerability. Wiley is best known for substituting the elite and often religious subjects of traditional old master paintings with contemporary African-Americans, emphasizing their absence in these historic paintings.  By challenging accepted historic norms, Wiley comments on “the signifiers of power, the implications of the traditional portrait, which are about privilege, power, elitism…..that he was not included in.” (New York Times)

Kehinde Wiley  Leviathan Zodiac, 2011. Courtesy of Roberts & Tilton, California. © Kehinde Wiley.

His work has a contemplative and reflective quality with his current solo show at the Stephen Friedman Gallery in London  (see London’s Evening Standard) depicting everyday real Haitians (with their names in the titles) painted in heroic, maritime poses, as in Fishermen Upon a Lee-shore, in Squally Weather (Zakary Antoine), 2017 (image at top). Lacking the technical complexity of his earlier works, these portraits of migrants or seafarers, fisherman or villagers,  have acquired heightened political status, due to the Department of Homeland Security’s termination, last week, of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) granted by Barack Obama, to Haitians in the US.

With irony as the main ingredient of Wiley’s art, the timing of the exhibition of his Haitian portraits is not to be underestimated. Due to the secrecy shrouding Barack Obama’s anticipated portrait, it will be interesting to see to what extent Kehinde Wiley will reflect this relevant humanitarian TPS issue.