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| Kehinde Wiley's portrait of President Obama |
On February 12, the National Portrait
Gallery unveiled the official portraits of former president Barack Obama and
former first lady Michelle Obama. Created by Kehinde Wiley, the eye-catching
portrait of President Obama garnered a large reaction across the Internet,
sparking many people to give their take. Two curators at the Georgia Museum of
Art — Dale Couch, curator of decorative arts, and Shawnya L. Harris, Larry D.
and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art — now
offer their perspectives after a period of thought.
First, Couch surveys the image itself,
paying attention to the deliberate choices of the artist and what they could
reveal:
“Kehinde Wiley's
portrait of President Obama is an intriguing work, rich in allusions. First,
the remarkable verdure or millefleurs background with only the minimal
suggestion of middle ground isolates the seated former President from ordinary
spatial perspective. Spatial ambiguity reigns in this image as President Obama
is slightly embraced by a suddenly alive foliage operating almost like ankle
anchors to keep him from floating in space, as the background magically can be
viewed as folding a perch for the chair — or not.
The foliage
background is an intentional allusion to British pre-Raphaelite portraiture,
which in turn is quoting a medieval tapestry, also intentional. He uses a
similar though strikingly more modern version of this background in the image
of Shantavia Beale II at the Brooklyn Museum. The chair is in a general British
neo-classical style and not dissimilar to American neoclassical chairs in the
White House. The result is a clear-cut portrait in the grand style for which
Wiley has become known.
But grandeur takes
a backseat here to the underlying sense of surreal experience, a notable mood
of both pre-Raphaelite and to previous Wiley portraits. So in this historically
grounded style a 21st-century president leans forward with his arms folded and
his elegant, artistically rendered hands before him, as he pensively leans out
to the viewers. One could say that this portrait holds his hands as a focus as
much as his face. His character is as a thinker, perhaps a man of letters.
An aging Obama is presented
and it is clearly a post-presidential portrait. But it is in this portrait that
he emerges as a man of tradition instead of revolution, a man who would
understand that reform is what makes conservatism possible. With the minimal
trappings of power, this figure gains dignity and even grace.”
In addition to the details of the portrait
itself, Harris considers the artist and his story.
“Although Wiley's
portrait is steeped in the grandeur of decorative and fine arts tradition,
the context of the Obama presidency in the 21st century and even its
unfolding in the life of the artist himself illuminates other possible
meanings. During the unveiling ceremony, painter Kehinde Wiley's bold and
articulate remarks about the creation process were punctuated by his tearful
acknowledgment of his mother, temporarily forgotten by Wiley himself.
Wiley's explanation
of her undying support of his craft despite humble beginnings in a single
parent household mirrored Obama's own narrative. Notions about rising ‘above
the ashes’ of life or ‘beating the odds’ are inherent in the American story but
resonate with many in the African American community and in the life of
its artists. The Obama portrait could then symbolize the possibility of
inclusion in a variety of traditions in the background foliage Wiley uses
as his backdrop.
The seeming
incongruity of that verdant background to the formal seated portrayal
serves to highlight, in some ways, Obama's calm demeanor as alien or
even magical in the midst of the natural environment over which he
presided. On the other hand, the fertile backdrop could be a sly reference
to his wife Michelle, whose iconic presence in his life and the White House
Gardens further cements his legacy.”
