Kehinde Wiley, Dogon Couple (2008)
This painting by Kehinde Wiley features two black males seated close to each other on two matching red chairs, against an all-over backdrop of intense orange and red wallpaper featuring vines and parrots.
The men are dressed casually, one in a loose blue singlet and striped purple shorts, the other in a football shirt (turquoise with yellow and red) and white sports shorts. The latter is also wearing some small beads and a large pendant with a man's portrait on it - he looks like some kind of a leader, political or religious, but then again could be a family member too. Both are wearing sandals and very close-cropped hair, they appear comfortable with each other and the one on the right (in the football shirt) has his arm around the other's shoulders. The same guy on the right has his other palm up, gesticulating, and a plaster on one leg.
The two men are youthful, slim and athletic looking, with shiny skin and perfect complexions - in fact the painting has an 'airbrushed' quality, as though they were appearing on a magazine cover. Only their clothing and appearance gives us any indication of their lifestyles and culture - we can't tell from the image where they are or where they're from, for they float here out of place, decontextualised, against their flowery backdrops. It is the title of the series that fills in the gaps: 'Lagos & Dakar' - telling us, presumably, that these men are somewhere in the West African countries of Nigeria or Senegal.
I imagine them in a street somewhere, surrounded by signs of life, the bustle of other people, stalls, smells of food, shouts and children laughing and maybe music... Living dusty, relatively simple lives. But the style of paintings says something quite different about them. It says that they are privileged, special, for they have been chosen as subjects for this painted portrait. Or have they been airbrushed for a magazine cover? And it says that they're not in the streets of West Africa, but are somewhere else, somewhere with pristinely decorative floral wallpaper. Somewhere that only knows about Africa through exotic images on wallpaper...
And then I wonder, are these men at ease here? Or do they feel out of place? They seem - from their postures and attitudes - to have an ease, a confidence that could work anywhere. But then, they also seem a little fake, a little polished, a little unreal. Is the artist giving them a power associated with expensive status symbols (fancy home decor, commissioned self-portraits, their image multiplied and sent into the homes of others, for others to enjoy and admire...)? Or is the artist rather using their image to undermine those status symbols, to usher a little grit and heat and attitude into the rarified atmosphere of the aristocratic portrait, the glamour magazine...? Certainly he's reminding us of life's extremes, and how more and more those extremes are forced to coexist and live with one another. And how if we're canny enough we can use that situation for good, by borrowing the best from all our worlds...
[517 words]
ART/DESIGN GLOSSARY:
all-over
decontextualised
