Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence

Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence

"That is the archaeology I am unearthing: the specter of police violence and state control over the bodies of young Black and brown people all over the world." -Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence features a new body of paintings and sculptures by American artist Kehinde Wiley confronting the legacies of colonialism through the visual language of the fallen figure. It expands on a subject the artist first explored in his 2008 series Down?a group of large-scale portraits of young Black men inspired by Wiley's encounter with Hans Holbein the Younger's The Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521-22) at the Kunstmuseum Basel. Holbein's painting triggered an ongoing investigation into the iconography of death and sacrifice in Western art that Wiley traced across religious, mythological and historical subjects. An Archaeology of Silence extends these considerations to include men...

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