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Input: When does an artist become a phenomenon? Itâs a rare moment on the scale of seeing a new star emerge in the night sky. Already  a rising art world star  American artist Kehinde Wiley  seems poised now at the age of 35 and after just a little over a decade of work to take the next step and really heat things up. With not one but two big New York City exhibitions  a featured appearance on a hot new album cover  and the kind of retrospective  lavishly illustrated  critically evaluative monograph that seals the deal   Kehinde Wiley  has the whole world in the palm of  his  hand  and thatâs exactly what  he  wants.
Born in 1977 as the youngest of six children to a single mother   Wiley  grew up facing hard economic times but also enjoying the intellectual stimulation of having a mother in academia. Looking for a way to keep Kehinde occupied   his  mother enrolled  him  in art classes  including some at the Huntington Library  where  he  could study portraits such as Thomas Gainsboroughâs famous Blue Boy. After graduating with an MFA from Yale in 2001   Wiley  became artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem  where  he  witnessed a steady stream of young African-American men walk past in full hip hop regalia. Joining the old school world of portraiture with this new school of personal style   Wiley  developed the unique subject matter and approach that has been a popular and critical success since.
In Kehinde Wiley  the first monograph dedicated to Wileyâs career as a whole (published by Rizzoli USA)  Thelma Golden  chief curator and director of the Studio Museum in Harlem  introduces the volume by remarking that she âwas in conversation with  Wiley  before I ever spoke to  him .â Wileyâs work touches on âthe politics of representation; the power of art history; the veracity of images; notions of authorship  identity  and culture; the critical nexus of race and gender in contemporary art â Golden listsâall things that she and nearly all contemporary art critics think deeply about. This combination of Wileyâs thought provoking practice and stunningly beautiful paintings makes him irresistible to both the high brows and those simply wanting to enjoy the show.
In addition to capturing visually  Wiley âs bravura brushwork and vast range of visual inventiveness in 275 color illustrations (including some gatefolds)   the contributors Kehinde Wiley  dig  their  critical teeth deep into Wileyâs art and come away with a mouthful. Art historian Robert Hobbs provides a detailed biography not just of Wileyâs life but of his thought  mapping mental landmarks ranging from W.E.B. DuBois and Henry Louis Gates  Jr.  to Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan. Hobbs sees a kind of âconceptual realismâ at the heart of Wileyâs portraiture that is âcoercive rather than simply mimetic.â More than just capturing a likeness  Wileyâs portraits capture your mind and make you think about the power relations embedded in imagery of all kinds throughout history.
 Wiley âs standard procedure has been to âstreet castâ individuals who catch his eye  invite them to his studio  allow them to browse art history books and pick a pose  and then photograph the subjects in full regalia to use for painting later. Wileyâs 2008 painting The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia (shown above) riffs on Renaissance sculptor Stefano Madernoâs The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia from 1600. From one perspective  the prone African-American male seems as powerless as the martyred saint. From another  the young man takes on the gravitas of Cecilia as a modern victim of thoughtless violence. From yet another  knowing that the young man chose this pose for himself  he takes on the role of provocateur  consciously drawing all those associations and moreâparadoxically in control even when prone. This alchemical approach to art history is at the center of the âconceptual realismâ Hobbs suggests.
The Jewish Museum  New York is currently showing the latest installment of The World Stage paintingsâKehinde Wiley/The World Stage: Israel. The exhibition features 14 large-scale portraits of young Israeli men of different ethnic backgrounds and religions. A video on the museumâs website shows Wiley in Tel Aviv âstreet castingâ and finding individuals such as Ethopian Jewish hip hop performer Kalkidan. Wiley finds hip hop in the unlikeliest places in Israel  proving the global reach of the art form that began in the Bronx as a means of âblackâ expression.
The title of Sean Kelly Galleryâs current Wiley exhibition  Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace  could be an emblem for everything Wileyâs been doing for the past decade both locally and globally. âThe phrase âan economy of graceâ speaks directly to the ways in which we manufacture and value grace and honor  the people that we choose to bestow that honor upon  and the ways in which grace is at once an ideal that we strive for and something that is considered to be a natural human right â Wiley explains. Wileyâs trying to turn his personal economy of grace into a global economy  with his portraits as the new gold standard. As technology brings us closer and closer  the friction between individuals  countries  ideologies  religions  and everything else heats up faster than ever. Grace may be the only currency that can pull us out of the global spiritual debt crisis. If Kehinde Wiley seems to have the world in his hands right now  itâs because he wants to save it one image at a time by showing us the grace and beauty of black men and  by extension  the grace and beauty of us all.
[Image: Kehinde Wiley. The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia  2008. Oil on canvas. 101.5 x 226.5 in. Â© Kehinde Wiley.]
[Many thanks to Rizzoli USA for providing me with the image above and a review copy of the monograph Kehinde Wiley  by Thelma Golden  Sarah Lewis  Robert Hobbs  and Brian Keith Jackson. Many thanks also to Sean Kelly Gallery (whose exhibition Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace runs through June 16  2012) and to The Jewish Museum  New York (whose exhibition Kehinde Wiley/The World Stage: Israel runs through July 29  2012) for press materials.]

Why All Kehinde Wiley Wants Is the World