By: Kyrie Sismaet By: Kyrie Sismaet | March 20, 2023 | People, Parties, City Life, News and Features, Culture, Celebrity, Art,
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"What an honor to be here in San Francisco... When you say 'bringing it back home,' this is what I'm talking about- San Francisco is the birthplace of American sensibility." With an indisuputably fond reverence for the city, these venerable statements are just a few of what luminary artist Kehinde Wiley powerfully charged the de Young museum with at his opening reception for his new exhibition, An Archaeology of Silence Thursday, March 16th.
Grandly unveiled to the public on Friday, March 18th, his compelling gallery will run until October 15, 2023, and highlights issues of systemic violence towards the Black community through the regal and dramatic stylized aesthetics of Western European art.
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Known for his exceptional work with his vibrantly divergent presidential portrait of Barack Obama, Wiley is no stranger to going outside of the box, as well as tackling modern issues. Sparked from the recent COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter movement, and other emotional news occurances, this is an exhibition in which Wiley called at the packed opening, "a direct response to so much of what we see in the American public."
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Amid an energized room of attendees outfitted in the most dazzling and glamorous wardrobes, Wiley emerged on stage with a brilliance that was instantly magnetic. With his name and exhibition title immensely displayed above him, he gleamed and began his speech by adoringly reflecting on his unique personal connection to San Francisco, and why he chose the city as the rightful home for his masterpieces.
"This is the place where I got my marks, my licks, coming straight out of high school, going into undergrad at the San Francisco Art Institute," Wiley proudly bellowed to the cheering crowd. Calling San Francisco "key," he elucidated that it was here that not only did he come to find himself, but also because this city is the historical epicenter for so many pivotal cultural movements for women's, gay, and Black rights.
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Following this background came the elucidation of his new work. "So many of us have known this story without having to have social media confirm it. We have known for a very long time that our young people are under siege."
Examining the ubiquitous iconography of death and sacrifice proliferated through Western art, Wiley utilizes such religious, mythological, and archaic themes to vividly translate contemporary issues. The modern subjects in his artworks hauntingly recall "the fallen figure" of mythical beings such as saints, martyrs, and heroes, simultaneously juxtaposing and bridging the style's historical contexts, such as its origins of colonialism, with ongoing systemic racism to amplify resistance.
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An Archaeology of Silence expands Wiley's 2008 Down series, in which young Black men are posed similarly to Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Dead Christ in the Tomb. The detailed portraits are large, towering, and tremendously captivating, both from their engulfing sizes and Wiley's precise linework and usage of bright colors.
"What you will see this evening is my response to this beautiful and terrible world that we've inherited," Wiley continued. "It's a mixed bag. It's a mixed show, there's gonna be some mixed emotions, but in the end it's coming from a place of inspiration and hope." Though Wiley wants us to absorb the severity of the current issues portrayed in his work, he emphasized that, "it's not coming from a place of doom-and-gloom, it's coming from a place of which an artist has the responsibility to respond to actuality."
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Positively reaffirming that his work was blossomed from a desire to heal and empower, he hopes viewing his impactful art will catalyze introspection, community, and change. Knowing San Francisco's identity as the stimulating beacon for pivotal cultural movements, Wiley's exhibition is guaranteed to fit right in. The rest of the evening allowed the attendees to mingle and walk through the galleries firsthand, which intimately flows through multiple rooms all decorated both with paintings on the walls and sculptures as centerpieces.
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An Archaeology of Silence will run from March 18 to October 15, 2023, and can be viewed in the de Young's 28, 29, 50a, 60, 61, 62, Galleries in Wilsey Court.
You can discover more about the exhibition and its backround, as well as reserve tickets, here.
See also: SF Bay Area Black-Owned Businesses To Know And Support
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