How Kehinde Wiley is reshaping the monumental

Summary of the Artistic/Cultural Techniques and Creative Process

Kehinde Wiley describes his goal of transforming everyday imagery and contemporary Black life into large-scale, theatrical, “monumental” artworks that engage power, crisis, and racial violence. He frames his practice through his upbringing in South Central Los Angeles during the 1980s–90s, and how educational opportunities and key influences helped shape his work—ultimately leading to An Archaeology of Silence.

Conceptual origins

Wiley explains that the show’s conceptual origin is tied to the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. He also connects contemporary policing violence to historical depictions of the fallen—such as religious imagery of Christ and paintings of slain soldiers.

For the title, he references Michel Foucault, interpreting “silence” as the condition of those whose stories were never allowed to be told.

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Artistic Approaches and Themes

Wiley emphasizes several artistic strategies:

• Reframing power imagery: Using the visual language of authority and “monumental” art to critique systems that dehumanize Black bodies.

• Appropriating and disrupting “master painting” traditions: Borrowing European/monumental painting conventions, then inserting Black and Brown subjects to interrupt what those traditions typically represent.

• Reworking mug-shot portrait logic: Turning coercive, involuntary documentation into chosen, self-authored portraits.

• Small-detail intensity: Carefully rendering brands, hairstyles, and “21st-century markers” to individualize sitters rather than reduce them to faceless symbols.

• Sculptural/ornamental growth motifs: Describing sculptural elements with tendrils/vines that suggest ongoing life and resistance even amid slaughter and domination.

• Poetic and spiritual aims (not only political ones): Creating work that seeks visibility, humanity, and desire—“the desire to be seen, the desire to be alive.”

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Steps, Materials, and Advice (as a Process)

• Create a self-sustaining path to education by starting an art gallery to market and sell work, funding early university.

• Develop portrait authorship through participation:

  • Invite people from Harlem to look through art history books.
  • Have them choose royal/aristocratic portrait styles and decide how they want to be pictured.

• Research historical visual languages to build the show’s framework, including:

  • Religious images of the fallen
  • Monumental European portrait conventions

• Build portraits from individualized “markers”:

  • Paint detailed personal signals (brands, hairstyles, tastes)
  • Fill out identity rather than flatten it into a single 2D political moment

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Notable Concepts and Creative Themes

• “Monumental” as critique: Making something grand to express deep crisis and systemic power.

• Silence as absence: Exploring who is missing from history and why.

• The politics of depiction: Contrasting mug shots (no choice) with portraiture (multiple ways to represent the self).

• Disruption of the classic canon: Maintaining recognizable “tropes,” while turning them toward contemporary Black presence and grief.

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Creators and Contributors Mentioned

• Kehinde Wiley (featured)
• Mickalene Thomas (mentioned as an influential peer)
• George Floyd (mentioned in relation to the triggering event)
• Michel Foucault (referenced for the title’s conceptual basis)
• Yale (institution mentioned)
• Studio Museum in Harlem (institution mentioned)
• San Francisco Art Institute (institution mentioned)