Kehinde Wiley and M.I.A
Interview magazine recently ran a great dialogue between singer M.I.A and painter Kehinde Wiley, discussing both Wiley’s innovative European-inspired representations of young black men and the future of the art world as a whole. In the wake of so many stale “just add water” artists and the reality TV era where it seems everyone truly does have their fifteen minutes of fame, is it possible to create art that is actually fresh? Wiley says it is his desire to “restart the conversation…throw away the old rules. This is something that, as artists, we constantly deal with-throwing away the past, slaying the father, and creating the new.” His portraits revolutionize the way black men and black culture are perceived – drawing inspiration from classic European portraiture, he takes his subjects from the streets of New York City and keeps them as they are, in sneakers, basketball jerseys and tank tops, creating a “mash-up of museum treasure and the urban life outside of its gates.”
M.I.A also discusses her experiences before she was famous, living in Sri Lanka pre-September 11th as a recent film school graduate. She talks about the bizarre influence of money-driven American culture in third world countries, stating “when I would go to Africa I used to get really pissed off that people would listen to 50 Cent in, like, a mud hut and want DVD players…because I realized that you have to teach people in a clichéd way how to be happy in the American media. Achieving happiness is not really about having a flat stomach and the best car.”
The conversation between these two highly influential artists is worth a read as they both have something real to say about the often difficult interaction between global and American culture and the influence of that exchange on the artists and the art community.
