Kehinde Wiley
American, born 1977
St Louis IX King of France, 2016
Oil on canvas
72 x 60 inches
Collection of Jim and Irene Karp
Image courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California.
Photo Robert Wedemeyer
This exhibit opens April 7, 2018 at the Seed Art Museum
How can contemporary art facilitate discussions about gender and power? Drawing chiefly from the permanent collection at the Speed Art Museum, Breaking the Mold explores depictions of gender identity through the body, dress, objects, and history.
The works of art in this exhibition address gender and sexuality through a multitude of perspectives. Because all humans contend with the issue of gender, this exhibition includes depictions of male, female, and non-binary individuals. Through these artworks we are inspired to question how we define “ideal” female and male body types, gendered societal roles, how gender intersects with race, and the perceived differences between male and female. Through self-portraits, portraits of their sitters, and images appropriated from popular culture, these artists address the themes of desire, attraction, pride, discomfort, and discrimination.
Among the exhibition’s highlights is the Speed’s recent acquisition of Tavares Strachan’s What Will Be Remembered In The Face of All That Is Forgotten, 2014-2015. Featuring a life-size suspended neon sculpture of the human circulatory system, the artwork is an homage to Rosalind Franklin, an often-overlooked scientist whose work transformed our understanding of the structure of DNA. Other highlights include a presentation of Ricerche: three by Sharon Hayes, which debuted at the 2013 Venice Biennale. In this video Hayes interviews 35 students at Mount Holyoke College, a women’s college in western Massachusetts, about issues surrounding sex, sexuality, and gender. The Speed is also proud to collaborate with the Photographic Archives at the University of Louisville and the Faulkner Morgan Archive on presenting photographs by John Ashley documenting the LGBTQ community of Lexington, Kentucky.
Featured artists in Breaking the Mold include Ghada Amer, John Ashley, Paul Cadmus, Robert Colescott, Sharon Hayes, John Kacere, Barbara Kruger, Louise Nevelson, Gladys Nilsson, Ebony Patterson, Philip Pearlstein, Kiki Smith, Tavares Strachan, John Valerio, June Wayne, John Wesley, and Kehinde Wiley.