@kehindewiley

Now on view at the National Gallery of London (@nationalgallery) American artist Kehindewiley explores the artistic conventions and canons of the Western landscape tradition in his new exhibition, 'Kehinde Wiley at the National Gallery: The Prelude'. Wiley’s images – as part quotation, part intervention – raise questions about power, privilege, identity, and above all highlight the absence or marginalization of Black figures within European art. Situated in the Sunley Room, at the centre of the collection, this free exhibition draws out the dynamic relationship between Wiley's transcendental works and the National Gallery's historical landscapes and seascapes by artists such as Claude, Friedrich, Turner and Vernet. Prelude (Babacar Mané), based on Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, takes its title from the William Wordsworth poem, "The Prelude". This work, along with Prelude (Ibrahima Ndiaye and El Hadji Malick Gueye), are Kehinde Wiley's first paintings referencing the works of Friedrich. Friedrich's original painting is reworked to feature a black man from Dakar, continuing Wiley's tradition of incorporating black figures into the canon of Western portraiture.