Kehinde Wiley’s ‘An Archaeology of Silence’

by Cornelius Washington

Kehinde Wiley has been a very special, insightful artist for quite a while, but his work always appears fresh, modern and important, reshaping the way we see Black people in portraiture and sculpture.

“What I was always struck by whenever I saw his portraits was the degree to which they challenged our conventional view of power and privilege,” President Barack Obama, a prominent portrait subject, has said of Wiley.

Lyrical and poetic elements comprise his latest exhibition at the de Young Museum, and the first to premiere his newest works of large-scale paintings and sculptures. The spacious exhibition directs focus on the works with dark green and red-painted walls, retaining a feeling of intimacy, even with the enormous awe-inspiring sculpture of a fallen man atop a horse.

In his works, Wiley investigates and questions how death and sacrifice have been portrayed across art history through a series of works that