Tudo bom!

Kehinde Wiley has dropped in LA.... again. His third show at Roberts & Tilton, The World Stage: Brazil, opened April 4th and runs through the end of May. It incorporates approximately 10 of Wiley's notoriously oversized oils on canvas, all of which depict male Brazilian models emulating poses of historic and nationalistic Brazilian artworks. The bright backgrounds are modeled after found Brazilian fabrics, and each canvas is finished with an ornate black frame. The World Stage series, begun in 2007 with The World Stage: China, has enabled Mr. Wiley to place young contemporary black males into the contexts of nationalistic and identifying artworks of China, Africa, India, and now Brazil. Each portrait provokes the viewer to reinvision the traditionally white European male iconic images that are so familiar. The authority and importance associated with the traditional subjects is therefore transferred to the contemporary models selected by Wiley. All of the men depicted in these new works were hand chosen by Wiley and his team from the favela streets in Brazil, and were asked to come to the studio, usually the day of their meeting, in clothing of their choosing to pose and be photographed for the paintings.

The exhibition travels to the Modern Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro from June 27th to August 22nd, 2009.