CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/29/2015

Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: Haiti

"There is a regalness to their stance. The chins raised in quiet defiance, in unassuming pride, offering a knowing regard that their self-possession carries its own currency. There is a history to these stances, yes the colonial history Kehinde Wiley used as foundations upon which to usurp and reconfigure Europeanist notions of power. Like the camouflage of Catholicism under which Vodou was surreptitiously practiced in this country so too are these stances of the classic island woman—the busker, market woman with head-tie and ruffle skirt, and the turned back, offering both a 'chups' (sucked teeth) and moment of voyeuristic eyes to regard as might be expected. These are queenly statures, inherited, put on, assumed by a culture whose embrace of womanhood in this arena is not unfamiliar." Excerpt from M. Cynthia Oliver's text and featured image, "Venus Anadyomene" (2014) are reproduced from World Stage: Haiti, which reproduces many of the most talked-about paintings in Wiley's current show at the Brooklyn Museum, closing Sunday. Read more about our forthcoming title in the series, Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: France 1880-1960.