Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar, solo exhibition, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2008)

The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar was Kehinde Wiley’s (b. 1977) first solo exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem and featured ten new paintings from his multinational The World Stage series. Wiley was known for his stylized paintings of young, urban African-American men in poses borrowed from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European figurative paintings, a practice he had started in the early 2000s while an artist in residence at the Studio Museum. Over the following two years, Wiley expanded his project by living and working abroad; he temporarily relocated to different countries and opened satellite studios to become familiar with local culture, history, and art. His The World Stage series was the result of these travels.

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Kehinde Wiley: World Stage Africa, Lagos – Dakar, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, 2008