Kehinde Wiley (Painting)

Los Angeles native and New York-based visual artist Kehinde Wiley has firmly situated himself within art history's portrait painting tradition. As a contemporary descendent of a long line of portraitists--including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Ingres, and others--Wiley engages the signs and visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic, and sublime in his representation of urban black and brown men found throughout the world.

By applying the visual vocabulary and conventions of glorification, wealth, prestige, and history to subject matter drawn from the urban fabric, Wiley makes his subjects and their stylistic references juxtaposed inversions of each other, forcing ambiguity and provocative perplexity to pervade his imagery.

Without shying away from the complicated socio-political histories relevant to the world, Wiley's figurative paintings and sculptures "quote historical sources and position young black men within the field of power." His heroic paintings evoke a modern style instilling a unique and contemporary manner, awakening complex issues that many would prefer remain mute.

Kehinde Wiley received his MFA from Yale University in 2001. Shortly after, he became an Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Wiley’s work has been the subject of exhibitions worldwide and is in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Denver Art Museum; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the High Museum, Atlanta; the Columbus Museum of Art; the Phoenix Art Museum; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Jewish Museum, New York; and the Brooklyn Museum, New York. Wiley will be the subject of a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York in 2015.

http://kehindewiley.com/

Photography by Slim Aarons

Slim Aarons (American, October 29, 1916–May 29, 2006) was a photographer well-known for his portraits of the rich and famous. Born George Allen Aarons, he spent his youth in New Hampshire and New York before joining the army during World War II, where his photography career began. Working throughout his career with magazines like Life, Holiday, and Town & Country gave Aarons the chance to document the jet-set lifestyle of Hollywood stars, American and European socialites, and other celebrated figures. His approach was simple; using no make-up artists or artificial lights, he let the natural opulence of his subjects and their surroundings illuminate his lens. Typical scenes from Aaron’s photography take place in the sun, and in front of a pool surrounded by bathing beauties.

Aarons’ access to this elite group of subjects speaks to the genuine friendship and confidence he nurtured with his subjects. The 1974 publication of A Wonderful Time: An Intimate Portrait of the Good life solidified Aaron’s place as a notable photojournalist and documentarian of the “good life” and was later followed by the publications of Slim Aarons: Once Upon a Time (2003), Slim Aarons: A Place in the Sun (2005), and Poolside with Slim Aarons (2007).