towel (Portrait of Andries Stilte)

Kehinde Wiley, artist

born 1977

Art Production Fund, producer

towel (Portrait of Andries Stilte), 2008

Portfolio/Series title: Works on Whatever 2008 Artist Towel Series

Where object was made: Harlem, New York, New York, United States

Material/technique: printing; cotton

Dimensions:
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 1524 x 1778 mm
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 60 x 70 in

Credit line: Illustrious gift of the 2010–2011 Spencer Interns: Denise Giannino, Chassica Kirchhoff, Meredith Moore, Ellen Cordero Raimond, Sarah C. Schroeder, Natalie Svacina, and Amanda Wright!

Accession number: 2011.0014

Not on display

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Power Clashing: Clothing, Collage, and Contemporary Identities

Freely mixing historical and contemporary subjects with high and low formats, Wiley samples European aristocratic portraiture with the aesthetic of hip hop culture in this oversized beach towel. This work—emulating Wiley’s oil painting Portrait of Andries Stilte from 2005—was created and sold in a limited edition to assist with financing public art projects through New York’s Art Production Fund. Wiley modeled both works after Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck’s 17th-century portrait of a wealthy civic guard from the Dutch city of Haarlem. Confronting the absence of black figures in historical paintings, Wiley replaces the white soldier with a young black man who wears a “Harlem” emblazoned jersey. Without collapsing their differences, Wiley finds an affinity beneath both figures’ self-fashioning through clothes, accessories, and other material signifiers.

Under Construction

This oversized beach towel depicts a reproduction of Kehinde Wiley’s oil painting, Portrait of Andries Stilte, a work based on a seventeenth-century painting by Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck. Here, a young black man dressed in contemporary hip-hop clothing stands at the center of the work in a pose similar to religious figures or royalty in European paintings. Above his head, the image of a golden sun mimics a decorative architectural element found in Louis XIV's court at Versailles, France.

When he was young, Wiley often visited museums in Los Angeles where he was confronted with the lack of black figures in historical paintings. In response to these experiences, Wiley changes the authority figures in historic European paintings from famous white men to anonymous black men, challenging traditional representations of power and identity.