de Young Museum, San Francisco (18 March–15 October 2023)
Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence
Kehinde Wiley's monumental new body of work confronts the silence surrounding systemic violence against Black people through the visual language of the fallen figure.
Exhibition view: Kehinde Wiley, An Archaeology of Silence, de Young Museum, San Francisco (18 March–15 October 2023). Courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Photo: Gary Sexton.
For painter Kehinde Wiley, realism is a form of subversion. Known primarily as a portraitist, he draws from Western art history—particularly Renaissance, Dutch Golden Age, Baroque, and Neoclassical painting—to examine themes of race, class, gender,