There were certain expectations that were assumed of me as a young black American 20th-century - then 20th-century artist. — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
At the core, every artist, no matter what his subject matter happens to be, has to be someone doing the looking. I… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
The expectations of the viewer are what you're asking about. And the expectations of the viewer are manifold. However, they are very… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
When I'm at my best, I'm trying to destabilize myself and figure out new ways of approaching art as a provocation. I… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Art is about changing what we see in our everyday lives and representing it in such a way that it gives us… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
This is - it's a sociological experiment in many ways. And so you're seeing the results of what happens when you put… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
There's something to be said about the art-industrial complex, the collectors who recognize that your work has some sort of future economic… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I think I've come through the art-industrial complex - I've been educated in some of the best institutions and been privy to… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
If you look at the paintings that I love in art history, these are the paintings where great, powerful men are being… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
My studio practice is a - I suppose a bit more like [Thomas] Gainsborough or [Peter Paul] Rubens in the sense that… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I'd like to walk that fine line between the authentic artist self and the manufactured artist self. I'd like to exist outside… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Let's talk about the artist's desire to go beyond the pictorial or the representational and the desire to create the abstract -… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I think one of the things that I took from Mel [Bochner] specifically was his ability to look at oneself and one's… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Much like teaching art to young art students age 10 to 15 or so on, you have to break it down into… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
It became a question of taste. I have a certain taste in art history. And that - I had a huge library… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Going to the Huntington gardens and libraries was radically important for me. They have one of the best collections of 18th- and… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I was 12 in 1989 during perestroika, when my mother found a program that sent me to Russia to study art in… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Mel [Bochner] sets a very high standard. He expects only the best and most thoughtful and rigorous examinations, not only of the… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I think that just the nature of art education in schools, it's about packs, you know? Like, we're young wolves running together,… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Artists have been very good at working for the church and for the state; communicating the aspirations of a society. — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
After high school I went to the San Francisco Art Institute, and I began a formalized art education where we went through… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
If art can be at the service of anything, it's about letting us see a state of grace for those people who… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I think what we should concentrate on is what it feels like to be a working artist in the day to day.… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I have a fondness for making paintings that go beyond just having a conversation about art for art's sake or having a… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
He [Michael Jackson] would choose specific moments. They were art history books that I prefer. They were paintings that he prefers. It's… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
As a working artist, I became increasingly aware of the patterns we see in the street and in America, becoming globalized in… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Artists should be able to thrive and allow their ideas to flourish as much as those in biotechnology or finance. — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Women are expected to identify gender as a starting point. Ethnicities are expected to identify that as a location. Is it ever… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
One of my most strong memories was studying with Mel Bochner, one of the, I think, high water marks of American conceptual… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
There's nothing shocking inherently about that, given that so much of the way that artists are taught is by copying old master… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I think it was a matter of, like, I'm not going to have my kids in these wild streets. Both my twin… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Artists are those people who sit at the intersection between the known and unknown, the rational and irrational, coming to terms with… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
When I was growing up and going to art school and learning about African-American art, much of it was a type of… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
What I love in art is that it takes known combinations and reorders them in a way that sheds light on something… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
My mother sent me to art classes at the age of 11. I began to have kids around me say, 'Will you… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
There was no image of the other biological half of myself. And as an artists, as a - as an - as… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I think the pairing of your material practice with your subject is something that is the constant concern of every artist for… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
I went back to my mother's house recently and I saw some of my earlier works as a 15-year-old art student. And… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
You know, I'm incredibly blessed to be able to have this level of choice as an artist today. In this economy, it's… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
If I have the same plan to go into the streets, find random strangers, use art-historical referent from their - from the… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
Much like teaching art to young art students age 10 to 15 or so on, you have to break it down into bite-sized pieces,… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
The erotic and the art historical imagination is something that gets very little play when people talk about my work, and when they rarely… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
One of the weirdest things that happened to artists and art criticism was this moment when everyone got cynical and stopped believing in the… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
At its best, what art does is, it points to who we as human beings and what we as human beings value. And if… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
My style is in the 21st century. If you look at the process, it goes from photography through Photoshop, where certain features are heightened,… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
I think the world that I grew up in was like being in this sort of magical artistic garden. — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
It was something that came sort of matter-of-factually. Because there - it's like really - real honest engagement with the people around me and… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
We're wired to be empathetic and to care about the needs of others, but also to be curious about others. And I think that's… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
Painting is situational. And my particular situation exists within gender, race, class, sexuality, nation. — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
There were certain expectations that were assumed of me as a young black American 20th-century - then 20th-century artist. — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
I think, something that you might be able to locate in the work that I'm creating today: the ability to look at a black… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
I remember the first time I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and saw a Kerry James Marshall painting with black… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
I believe that artists should be part of the culture. I think that my work clearly bears that out. — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
Just physically, if you looked at the house that I grew up in, my mother created this greenhouse. And surrounded the entire property. And… — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share
![“My studio practice is a - I suppose a bit more like [Thomas] Gainsborough or [Peter Paul] Rubens in the sense that any artist who wants to create a grand narrative on a grand scale has to sort of parse out some of the smaller aspects of painting or the more mundane aspects of painting to others.” quote by Kehinde Wiley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9b9/kehinde-wiley-1194_art_my-studio-practice-is-a-i-suppose-a-bit_2097387.jpg)
![“I think one of the things that I took from Mel [Bochner] specifically was his ability to look at oneself and one's relationship to the history of art and the practice of art at arm's length, the ability to sort of clinically and coldly remove oneself from the picture and to see it simply as a set…” quote by Kehinde Wiley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d03/kehinde-wiley-1194_ability_i-think-one-of-the-things-that-i-took-fr_1847799.jpg)
![“Mel [Bochner] sets a very high standard. He expects only the best and most thoughtful and rigorous examinations, not only of the history of art but your own practice.” quote by Kehinde Wiley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/06b/kehinde-wiley-1194_art_mel-bochner-sets-a-very-high-standard-he_1509862.jpg)
![“He [Michael Jackson] would choose specific moments. They were art history books that I prefer. They were paintings that he prefers. It's this dance back and forth. We were halfway through the dance. He died.” quote by Kehinde Wiley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/70b/kehinde-wiley-1194_art_he-michael-jackson-would-choose-specific_2414757.jpg)
