For his project The World Stage, Brooklyn artist Kehinde Wiley traveled across three continents in search of his muse. "It began in China and it followed from there to India, Brazil, parts of West Africa, and so on," he says. "The idea is to sort of use the experience of black American popular culture that has been beamed out into the world and collect it and trace it and track it." Toward that end, he abandoned his
usual approach—painting African-American men in rococo settings—for pitting them against the cultural graphic backdrops of their respective countries. "I've been using the decorative elements of all of these cultures," he says. "In China, we'd use the decorative patterns on silk and pottery. In Brazil, we'd go to marketplaces and collect fabrics." Tomorrow, ten of his latest World Stage works (painted in Senegal and Nigeria) go on display at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It's Wiley's first solo show at the place where he got his start—he was an artist-in-residence there after graduating from Yale.
He's also planning a limited-edition series of bomber jackets, to be sold in a pop-up store. "It will be a discreet space in Manhattan and exist for a certain amount of months and then it will decay and peter out," he says. For Wiley, the concept is more about art than fashion: "I've been approached by a number of major labels that we all know. And I decided to do something decidedly homespun, where all of the control is in my hands." Stay tuned: The outerwear will be available this October.
The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar, tomorrow through October 26, The Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 W. 125 St., New York, (212) 864-4500, studiomuseum.org
KENYA HUNT
12:57 PM, July 16, 2008
Photo: Kehinde Wiley/Courtesy of The Studio Museum
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