Forceful Art Marks 'new Republic'

Realistic detail combines well with strong social, satirical, art historical and decorative elements, in the paintings of Kehinde Wiley. The “Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic” exhibit, organized by the Brooklyn Museum, is at Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive. Catching our eye forcefully as we enter it is an “Equestrian Portrait of Philip II” — replaced by an armor-clad Michael Jackson. Hovering cupids holding a wreath over the pop star's head, and small figures fighting behind him, only add to the impact of this giant oil. Wonderfully outlandish, too, is an oil of a heavyset black man as “Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps,” dramatically gesturing on a rearing horse. A gold-on-crimson, wallpaper-like background, and names of conquerors on the rocks, add humor to Wiley's mock heroic Napoleonic opus. Leafy silvery motifs flit through the air, like barbed wire, around “Colonel Platoff on His Charger,” depicting a rider in a fur-trimmed red hoodie on a white horse. Figure and ground seem to seethe, crowd the surface, and be almost interactive and interchangeable, giving an “in-your-face” quality to many of his compositions. These range from early 2000s works, to later ones from his “World Stage” project, and a recent series, portraying women, called “An Economy of Grace.” A young man, striking a dandy-like pose with a walking stick, is nearly part of the floral pattern, in “The King at the Hunt,” a 2006 oil based on a 1639-40 Dutch painting. Similar is the debonair pose of a young man with a Red Cross shoulder bag, pulling the strings of his pink hooded coat, surrounded by flowers, in a 2007 work. Called “Support the Rural Population and Serve 500 Million Peasants,” the Red Cross worker oil-enamel appears to offer dry commentary on China's Cultural Revolution. Providing a nice feminine echo of Wiley's big 2005 oil of Napoleon crossing the Alps, is his 2005 portrait of two Haitian sisters in blue dresses, named Bonaparte, sitting together. Bronze sculptural busts are another notable aspect of the show, sometimes rivaling the power of paintings. These range from the heroic, in a bust of “Houdon Paul-Louis,” to the more pensive, in a “Cameroon Study” of a man, with a tennis shoe arbitrarily balanced on his head. Three female sculptural busts are “Bound” together by their magnificent, wildly expressive, heavily braided hair, in a superb 2014 bronze. Expressive hair also connects this sculpture, at least indirectly, to an early 2001 oil of a man in a blue suit, eyes closed, whose hair seems to leave his head, to create random patterns in space. More overtly religious is an installation of illuminated portraits resembling the stained glass of church windows, as well as altar-like gold- and wood-framed oils of black men. Covering Wiley's 14-year career, the show also contains a selection of videos about the artist, and his interactions with people worldwide, who model and collaborate in his work process. A Los Angeles native and master's degree recipient at Yale University in 2001, Wiley had a 2001 residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and established a satellite studio in Beijing in 2006. The final stop on a national tour, the exhibit at OKCMOA is highly recommended in its run through Sept.Read more on NewsOK.com