Friday, 17 August 2012

Kehinde Wiley


This weeks ALVC class focuses on the Postmodern theme "INTERTEXTUALITY", re-read Extract 1 The death of the author on page 44 of your ALVC books and respond to the oil paintings of Kehinde Wiley.

         Find a clear definition of Intertextuality and quote it accurately on your blog using the APA referencing system. Use your own words to explain the definition more thoroughly.

    “a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. The framing of texts by other texts has implications not only for their writers but also their readers”(Barthes 1977,1480)
Intertextuality is looking at a piece of writing or artwork and trying to compare or relate it to something familiar. It is often that we do this, critiques do this quite often as well for example art critiques constantly compare how a new artists to a previous well known artist. 

     Research Wiley's work and write a paragraph that analyzes how we might make sense of his work. Identify intertextuality in Wiley's work.

Wiley paint’s portraits based on photographs of African American men whom he sees in the streets in heroic terms. Merging between street style and postmodern painting. Intertexuality is present because in his work we start to think of segregation where it was the white man usually in the high positions. In today’s society if we see a young man dressed they way the young men are dressed in Wiley’s paintings we immediately label them as a thug/gangster. So not only does Wiley make us think in a historical context but also in a mordenr day context through his work.

       Wiley's work relates to next weeks Postmodern theme "PLURALISM" . Read page 51 and discuss how the work relates to this theme.

The post-modern belief is that we are all equal. Men from any cultural background excluding European are just as powerful and have rights just as equal to Europeans. Wiley lets us remember this in his work using pluralism.

      Comment on how Wiley's work raises questions around social/cultural hierarchies , colonisation, globalisation, stereotypes and the politics which govern a western worldview.

Wiley fades out the social hierarchies of the “white man” always being in power and the “black man” being in a lesser position. He makes stereotypical people in society realize that skin colour no longer matters. Globalism is present because other artists are following Wiley’s lead in the messages he portrays in his work through pluralism. He is also politically correct in his work , showing that in this day and age nothing is based on one’s racial background e.g. whether you deserve to die or not, these politics govern the western world.

 Add some reflective comments of your own, which may add more information that
you have read during your research.

I find Wiley’s work to be eye catching, which was the idea since his portraits are quite large and colourful. His paintings fuse history and style in a manner different to others. His models were asked to replicate poses from the paintings of renaissance masters such as Tiziano Vecellio and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Which helps portray his message across to the audience quite clearly.

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