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Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley Quotes

Painter

Kehinde Wiley is a renowned contemporary painter known for his modern interpretations of traditional portraiture. His works typically depict portraits of African Americans, Latinos, and other minorities, blending elements of history, culture, and pop culture. Born in 1977, Wiley's work has had a profound impact on the art world.

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Famous Kehinde Wiley Quotes

“The art world has become so insular. The rules have become so autodidactic that, in a sense, they lose track of what people have any interest in thinking about, talking about or even looking at.”

People Thinking World Art Interest Loses Talking Track Art World

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“I think that's kind of indicative of a type of self-confidence that people develop when they recognize their own ability to create.”

People Thinking Kind Self Ability Type Self Confidence

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“There is a political and racial context behind everything that I do. Not always because I design it that way, or because I want it that way, but rather because it's just the way people look at the work of an African-American artist in this country.”

People Way Want Looks Country Political Artist Behinds Design African American

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“I have been painting white people for much longer in my life than I have done for colored people.”

People Has Beens Done White Painting

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“I began working within the streets of Harlem, where, after graduating from Yale [University, New Haven, CT], I became the artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem [New York, NY]. I wanted to know what that was about. I would actually pull people from off of the streets and ask them to come to my studio.”

People Knows Wanted Artist Asks Streets Havens New York University Studios Museums Graduates Yale Harlem Residence Yale University

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“It became a question of taste. I have a certain taste in art history. And that - I had a huge library of art history books in my studio. And I would simply have the models go through those books with me, and we began a conversation about, like, what painting means, why we do it, why people care about it why or how it can mean or make sense today.”

People Mean Art Book Care Today Certain Painting Huge Taste Conversation Models Library Studios Make Sense Art History History Books

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“My paintings at their best take that vocabulary and attempt to transpose that into a form that gives respect not only to the history of painting but also to those people who look and sound like me.”

People Giving Looks Form Sound Painting Like Me Vocabulary

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“The ability to look at certain patterns with regards to urban fashion, with regards to swagger, with regards to cultural hegemony, with regards to the ways in which young people look at resistance culture as a pattern that should be mimicked and admired.”

People Way Should Looks Young Certain Culture Ability Fashion Regard Patterns Resistance Urban Swagger Hegemony

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“I was recently in Israel doing my work and casting for models in the streets of Haifa and Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, meeting young Israelis and Palestinians and Falasha, Ethiopian Jews who had migrated to Israel in the '70s. They're obsessed with Bob Marley. They're obsessed with Kanye West. They're obsessed with resistance culture, people who find that they're not necessarily comfortable in their own personal and national skin.”

People Young Culture Streets Comfortable Models Skins Meetings West Jew Israel Resistance Obsessed Bob Palestinian Casting Jerusalem Marley

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“It was something that came sort of matter-of-factually. Because there - it's like really - real honest engagement with the people around me and just like really honestly being a little bit confused, quite frankly, about Harlem.”

People Littles Real Matter Bits Honest Little Bit Honestly Confused Engagement Harlem

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, where people are in cars.”

People Car Grew Grew Up South Los Angeles

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“Much like teaching art to young art students age 10 to 15 or so on, you have to break it down into bite-sized pieces, essential components. You have to - you know, at this point I'm so used to operating within given assumptions about art. But when you're explaining art to art students or people who are new to this experience, you have to really go back to the fundamentals.”

People Knows Art Age Young Used Given Break Pieces Teaching Students Essentials Fundamentals Assumption Bites Components Explaining Teaching Art Art Students

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“So much of the hubris that surrounded conceptual art in the 1950s through '70s was that it had this arrogant presupposition that pointing in and of itself was a creative act. It never rigorously politically and socially analyzed the fact that the luxury to point is something that so many people throughout the world don't have.”

People World Art Facts Creative Luxury Arrogant Pointing Hubris Conceptual Art

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“It never really understood its own situational luxury. And I think that by and large the privilege of being Kehinde Wiley in the 21st century, making these high-priced luxury goods, traveling the world, pointing at these people, behooves me to have a point of view and to say something about it.”

People Thinking World Views Century Understood Privilege Point Of View Luxury Goods 21st Century Pointing Luxury Goods

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“The expectations of the viewer are what you're asking about. And the expectations of the viewer are manifold. However, they are very fixed, given who I am in the world. People have certain expectations of me as an artist.”

People World Artist Certain Given Expectations Asking Who I Am Fixed Viewers Manifold

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“Most people say, "Hell, no. I don't know who you are. This scares me. Like, I'm not interested in this."Another way of looking at these paintings is, these are the guys who said yes.”

People Knows Way Said Guy Hell Painting Who You Are Scare Not Interested Another Way

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“I've had moments where I've met people who were complete, like, idiots, who could not understand visual culture to save their lives.”

People Moments Culture Mets Idiot Visuals

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“So sometimes you have to play your hand and sort of push in a direction. And I think that masculinity is the driving point for a lot of the way that people, like, posture in the work.”

People Thinking Way Sometimes Play Hands Driving Masculinity Posture

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“That's the trouble with, I think, my - the contemporary read of my work. So many people just simply say, "These are pretty pictures of black boys." They're not really thinking about, like, what the whole thing is.”

People Thinking Whole Black Boys Trouble Contemporary Black Boy Pretty Picture

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“I've met others [people] who simply responded to me, "You're Kehinde Wiley. I know your work. I saw it at the Brooklyn Museum [Brooklyn, NY] And I'd be honored to be in your work."”

People Knows Saws Mets Museums Honored Brooklyn

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“People who - and I think that's been a huge education for me. I think it's a - it's a privilege to be able to meet such a broad cross-section of New York and increasingly the world, and to get a feel of how people respond to visual culture.”

People Thinking World Feels Able Culture New York Huge Crosses Privilege Visuals Broads Sections

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“In our conversations, he [Michael Jackson] revealed a surprising understanding of art history. We were going through the finer points of the difference between one Italian sculptor to the next. You know, this - these are things that we don't necessarily assume of people in sanctified light.”

People Knows Art Light Next Understanding Differences Conversation Assuming Italian Surprising Sculptors Art History

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“There are just so many different types of people that come into my studio, and secondarily, there's the idea of ideation, like, "Who are you and what do you see in yourself in this other person?" So many different people that you would see so many different things.”

People Persons Ideas Different Type Studios Different Things Different Peoples Ideation

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“I think what's really interesting and useful about this question is that ultimately all art is a type of self-portraiture. And so in the act of identifying yourself, you're using others to get to that point. And so you're parsing out different aspects of different people in the world. You're choosing not only from America but increasingly globally different aspects of what's out there.”

People Thinking World Art Different Self America Interesting Type Art Is Aspect Different Peoples Really Interesting Identifying Portraiture Identifying Yourself

Author:Kehinde Wiley

“It's a culture. It's - I mean, people obsess over this. And people create subcultures that identify - and there are people in the streets who will recognize certain patterns and signifiers.”

People Mean Certain Culture Streets Patterns Mean People Subculture

Author:Kehinde Wiley

About the Author

Born: 1977
Known for: Painter
Quotes: 177

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