Kehinde Wiley's First French Solo Show at Galerie Daniel Templon

Kehinde Wiley presented his first monographic exhibition in France at Galerie Daniel Templon in Paris from October 27 to December 24, 2012. Known for portraits of celebrities and strangers from Harlem, Wiley draws on European painting traditions from Titian to Gainsborough. His subjects, typically Black men, adopt regal poses amid ornate floral backgrounds. For this show, he focused on French colonial history, traveling to Tunisia, Morocco, Gabon, Congo, and Cameroon to meet local youth. After studying masterpieces at the Louvre, he had his models pose referencing selected paintings and sculptures. The works critique Eurocentric representation and Orientalism, blending Western art history with multicultural diaspora codes. Wiley's World Stage project, begun in 2007, has taken him to China, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka, Israel, Nigeria, and Senegal, where he photographs young men in their local attire, transposing them into European pictorial traditions.