No poser here: acclaimed artist Kehinde Wiley paints Black masculinity anew.(culture)

Kehinde Wiley talks about passing and posing--the themes of his critically acclaimed paintings--with an infectious excitement. Surrounded by the giant canvasses that line the walls of his studio, the artist is earnest and modest; his inspirations are as playful and original as his art work about Black masculinity.

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For his Passing/Posing series, Wiley says he wanted to explore whether Black masculinity is "defined by hypersexuality, anti social behavior and a propensity towards sports, or is it something that is more authentic and elusive?"

The artist approached Black men in Harlem and had them pose to emulate the iconography of classical European painting. The paintings, which now go for at least $20.000, have graced the cover of the prestigious Art in America magazine and won praise for Wiley, who has completed a residency at Harlem's Studio Museum, and exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and Deitch Projects in New York.

In his Passing/Posing paintings, Wiley reshapes and plays with popular constructions of Black masculinity, giving new meaning to old poses and historical context to contemporary style. The artist was driven by several provocative questions: "How is it that they arrived in these poses? What are they passing for? What is this universe that's being created?"

The Immediacy of the Pose

The path to success for Wiley started at the age of 11 when his mother enrolled him in a free arts program funded by the city of Los Angeles. He went on to attend the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. "I always felt this was going to be a life for me," he says on a summer afternoon at his studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "I always felt like this would be something that I would do--whether I was a professional artist full-time or an artist who had a day job supporting my art habit."