The insidious ingenuity of Kehinde Wiley...

Kehinde Wiley was born in Los Angeles, California in 1977. His mother is African-american and his father is Nigerian.

Showing an early interest in painting, Kehinde's mother enrolled him in art classes as a youth. At age 12, Kehinde spent a short time in a Russian art school. He went on to earn his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1999, and eventually attained an MFA from Yale University in 2001.

Now, what makes Kehinde's paintings so groundbreaking, is how he takes the portraiture of european Renaissance artists and places young Black men and women in these works. Not only does he place these young Black and brown men and women in these 'classical' european settings, but he also infuses these paintings with artifacts of modern day culture. Take for instance a painting like Jacques-Louis David's 'Napoleon crossing the Alps' (above); not only has Kehinde replaced Napoleon's image with that of a brotha on horseback, but what he also does, is have the brotha in the painting wear baggy combat fatigue pants and Timberland boots (you can click on the painting to see this a bit more clearly). So essentially, Kehinde's breathing new life into these stuffy, centuries old painting's for a new generation.

And might I add, as a former art student myself, I can't help but swoon at this brotha's level of artistic virtuosity and celebrity. I've always had a fondness for portraiture and 'high art' stylings. And this is what I would've pursued had I not found my love for the written word. I also love that the brotha has traditionally African facial features. And I guess this is one of the reasons why he wanted to represent 'real life' brothas in his paintings.

On top of all this, Kehinde speaks french and chinese fluently, and has a better command of the english language than I do.

But as I scanned Kehinde's oeuvre of art pieces, I noticed a disturbing trend.

I saw that throughout his many works, we see two or more brothas and sistas in his paintings, but what we don't see is a Black man and woman together in any of his portraits. And what we never see in his paintings, are Black men and women in a loving embrace.

If you look at my triptyched header, you'll see two more of Kehinde's paintings. On Kehinde's left, we have his painting of three brothas, and to his right, we have a couple of Black women embracing.

Now, what Kehinde does to find models is something he calls, 'street casting'. Where he literally goes into city streets and finds Black men and women for his art pieces. And in a PBS documentary done on him called, 'An economy of grace', I noticed when he picked Black women for his paintings, he especially picked females who had multiple facial piercings and extremely short cropped hair. Basically, he was looking for sexually conflicted or gay Black women.

Now, Kehinde is gay himself; and I knew this, but in this documentary he actually professed this openly. Also, Kehinde is a white fascist freemason. And I'll show you him flashing a freemasonic hand signal in the short vid at the end of this.

So ultimately, what does this mean?

Understand, Kehinde's work is probably the only time, or one of the only times, a Black man or woman will see themselves represented in a museum. Usually, what we see in museums are white walls, with white people, who drink white wines. So this is really beneficial to our Diaspora in terms of seeing ourselves in a splendid, or more exalted light. But in the context of white fascism, what Kehinde's paintings are doing is sending the message that Black men and women should be with themselves exclusively; meaning our Diaspora in no way should endeavor to be with members of the opposite sex. So Kehinde's art is being used as yet another tool to mainstream homosexuality for Black people.

Now, in the past on this Blog, I've said that Black love is revolutionary. And that's not hyperbole. 'Cause at every instance, we see white fascists attempts to destroy it. And every Black man and woman reading this should understand how Black love is revolutionary, if for no other reason than we are the people with the most genetic power to breed our oppressors, i.e. white people, out of existence.

So am I saying that you should avoid a Kehinde Wiley exhibit if one comes to your town? No. But if you do decide to attend one of his functions, understand what's being reinforced psychologically with his art. Don't passively imbibe in the beauty of these paintings. It's incumbent on 'conscious' or deep-thinking Black men and women to decode and decipher every piece of entertainment that's created for us. Especially ones coming out of white institutions like national museums.

Cause we should know by now, that a white fascist's perfect world view, means every Black person has been gotten rid of. Remember, to white fascists, a Black person existing anywhere is a threat to them everywhere.

So let's be about the work of getting rid of our white fascist-induced self-hatred, so we can effectively fight the machinations working to destroy the Black nuclear family.

'Cause at the end of the day, all we got is us fam!

And like Sam Jackson said in the movie 'Do the Right Thing': “That's the triple truth, Ruth.”

Kem Wesir!

MontUHURU Mimia

P.S.

Here's the vid I promised showing Kehinde flashing his freemasonic hand signal, and this vid also includes a clip where he openly speaks about his homosexuality. And if you'd like to see the larger version of this vid on my YouTube channel, you can do that here.