Obama Portrait artist - Kehinde Wiley controversy

[FrankensteinMMA]

There is a difference here. These paintings aren't racist but the Trump administration clearly is.

the trump administration is moslty racist in the eyes of then left....

the obama artist is racist moslty in the eyes of the right...

 

[AnGrYcRoW]

Well, the Obama's continue to be racial divisive even out of office. That's to be expected.

Only if you try really really hard to be divided

 

[Goonerview]

From what I've gathered, the paintings aren't a kill whitey thing, but a reference to scripture.

The beheaded "woman" isn't a woman at all but a Babylonian general that was decapitated by Judith.

Oh FFS.

You are by far the biggest cuck on this website.

 

[Goonerview]

From what I've gathered, the paintings aren't a kill whitey thing, but a reference to scripture.

The beheaded "woman" isn't a woman at all but a Babylonian general that was decapitated by Judith.

Liberal white people are the most pathetic people on the planet.

 

[Prime Rib]

It's stylistic, and art is often meant to jolt the senses of the viewer.
Yes the reaction would be different if the roles were reversed for the races in the painting, because American history is of Whites enslaving and oppressing Blacks, not the other way around. People expect to sweep away history under the rug and act like nothing happened.

One can also say, just imagine if Jesus and Christianity was an African religion, would White Americans embrace it? We typically never consider that god and his messenger in our society is always portrayed as White. And Blacks are expected to worship this god and accept god as White.

I like art, and that "art" wants to suck the will to live out of my soul.

"Motel" art. I am no a snob about art but WTF.............here ya go...

 

[Goonerview]

Michelle was just being blunt. To the right that makers her uppity, and the right hates uppity or outspoken Blacks. The right only wants passive docile Blacks who will accept and be content with White dominance. They hate the Obamas, like they hate any liberal or Democrat Black politician, because they (the right) perceives the Obamas as not accepting America as a country where White rule should not be questioned.

I think white people like black people who obey the law.

I think white people are genunely happy for black people who are able to be legitimately successful, that's why they voted for Obama in the first place.

 

[Bloodworth]

Ok, seriously, that’s sperm on Obama’s head.





I actually feel bad for him.

Looks completely awkward and out of place.
Taking a dump in poison ivy?

 

[OverCoronavirus Pressure]

I think white people like black people who obey the law.

I think white people are genunely happy for black people who are able to be legitimately successful, that's why they voted for Obama in the first place.

Agreed with the caveat that I prefer people of any type who obey the law.

 

[PrinceOfPain]

Don't really have an opinion on the sperm cell on his temple, but Snopes' attempt to categorise it as "false" is pretty funny. They refer to it as a "faithfully-reproduced vein" (their punctuation) and then produce a close-up of Obama's temple - no vein in sight.

https://www.snopes.com/obama-official-portrait-sperm-cells/

 

[Rational Poster]

Liberal white people are the most pathetic people on the planet.

 

[Rational Poster]

Oh FFS.

You are by far the biggest cuck on this website.

Don't double quote the same message snowflake.

 

[Brazilian HKD]

Well politics aside I think there is somethig we can agree on.
The painting sucks.

 

[panamaican]

Maybe this is more your speed? Pick your fave.

Gentileschi (a female painter, incidentally, for those who care. circa 1614-1620)

Rubens (circa 1616)

Caravaggio (again! maybe. circa 1600-1610)

Valentin de Boulogne (circa 1626)

PS I know that there may be some nip showing on one, but I figure it should get a pass on account of it being a goddamn Rubens. If not, I humbly request that a mod just remove it and show clemency.

Anyway, I post these just to give a view of how the subject was treated in some of the best works by the greatest artists of the 1600s. Bear in mind that Wiley explicitly states that he was inspired by the works of Caravaggio and Gentileschi, so it is not unfair to compare him to them; Wiley himself invites the comparison.

Honestly, I would respect Wiley more if he had made Judith a black woman and kept Holofernes as a white man; if he did that, he would at least have been engaging with the story itself on a more than superficial level.

Instead, we got this:

I can't look at either of those two paintings now without picturing it as a white chick poking her head through an old lady's curtains and getting her hair tugged by a black woman, especially given the awkward neck angle on the first painting; there isn't even any blood. The women are posed like clothing models, because that is what they are, because they are there to make Givenchy dresses look good.

I remain convinced that Wiley, on a fundamental level, isn't saying anything with these pieces, beyond what a viewer projects onto it. He does almost exactly the same thing in every composition: black model, ambiguous expression, pose from a more famous painting, colourful patterned background, part of the pattern obscures the figure in the foreground. The message is the same, his work is constantly rehashed, and it is fundamentally boring and safe, because the message is that you should buy his shit because he puts black people in art, and they weren't (!) in art before.

Out of curiosity, is this Judith/Holofernes theme often rehashed in the modern era?

Also, from a technical standpoint, is this flower background thing hard to achieve the way Wiley is doing it?

 

[Son of Jamin]

Liberal white people are the most pathetic people on the planet.

I just read today an article by a very wise and eloquent Kurdish journalist in Sweden. She has written a lot about honor related violence among Kurdish people.

Today, she wrote about how funny it's when blonde Swedish men writes her and informs her about how wrong she is and that socialism and feminism are widespread among Kurdish people.

 

[Mark Cutting]

Don't really have an opinion on the sperm cell on his temple, but Snopes' attempt to categorise it as "false" is pretty funny. They refer to it as a "faithfully-reproduced vein" (their punctuation) and then produce a close-up of Obama's temple - no vein in sight.

https://www.snopes.com/obama-official-portrait-sperm-cells/

It's the "anger" vein

 

[MicroBrew]

Don't really have an opinion on the sperm cell on his temple, but Snopes' attempt to categorise it as "false" is pretty funny. They refer to it as a "faithfully-reproduced vein" (their punctuation) and then produce a close-up of Obama's temple - no vein in sight.

https://www.snopes.com/obama-official-portrait-sperm-cells/

Where's the close-up? All I see on the Snopes link is the portrait.

 

[MicroBrew]

Out of curiosity, is this Judith/Holofernes theme often rehashed in the modern era?

Also, from a technical standpoint, is this flower background thing hard to achieve the way Wiley is doing it?

The background does show some repetition of the motifs , with slight changes to the edges of a particular motif.
Also, like a lot of big name artists, Wiley does not do all of the paintings himself, he outsources some to no name workers. In Wiley's case, he has a studio in China cranking out work. Damien Hirst is infamous for having underlings do a lot of work that gets passed off as Hirst pieces. Having no name artists crank out work under a single painter's name has been going on for centuries.

 

[Ruprecht]

The background does show some repetition of the motifs , with slight changes to the edges of a particular motif.
Also, like a lot of big name artists, Wiley does not do all of the paintings himself, he outsources some to no name workers. In Wiley's case, he has a studio in China cranking out work. Damien Hirst is infamous for having underlings do a lot of work that gets passed off as Hirst pieces. Having no name artists crank out work under a single painter's name has been going on for centuries.

The wallpaper-like repetition is apparently part of his signature style.

Kehinde Wiley, an artist originally from Los Angeles and now based in New York, paints striking, larger than life portraits that often incorporate intricate patterns.
These can be naturalistic, as in repeated patterns of realistically rendered leaves or flowers, or decorative, sometimes borrowing from the baroque or Art Nouveau, but often reflecting the cultural heritage of countries visited in the course of his “World Stage” project.

From the greenery sprout flowers that have symbolic meaning for the sitter. African blue lilies represent Kenya, his father’s birthplace; jasmine stands for Hawaii, where Mr. Obama himself was born; chrysanthemums, the official flower of Chicago, reference the city where his political career began, and where he met his wife.

"Most of the backgrounds I end up using are sheer decorative devices. Things that come from things like wallpaper or the architectural façade ornamentation of a building, and in a way it robs the painting of any sense of place or location, and it’s located strictly in an area of the decorative. For the backgrounds in the World Stage Series, I look for traditional decorative objects, textiles, or devotional objects of that culture to draw upon."

The prominence of the background was also deliberate.

"In a very symbolic way what I'm doing is charting his path on Earth through those plants that sort of weave their way. There is a fight going on between he and the foreground and then the plants that are sort of trying to announce themselves underneath his feet," Wiley said. "Who gets to be the star of the show? The story or the man who inhabits that story? It's all chance-driven."

Apparently he also actively pursued the portrait job.

What about doing the inauguration of President Obama? Wiley admits it’s the job he was born for: “I’d love, love, love to do his official presidential portrait. I’m actively campaigning.”

 

[Fedorable]

He should of have that racist church pastor of his do the painting

 

[Goonerview]

I can't imagine any other race of person on earth, who when confronted with a blatant racist painting of a black woman swinging around the severed head of a woman of their own race would make excuses for the painter.

I can't imagine even the most liberal black/Asian ever defending such blatant racism against their own.

But liberal white people are so far gone, it's unreal. Pathological masochism.