Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 7: KEHINDE WILEY: AN ECONOMY OF GRACE
Jeff Dupre’s look at a noted artist’s shift in focus premiered in a shorter version at the Reel Artists Film Festival in Toronto. It went on to screen at SXSW, Nantucket, deadCENTER, Provincetown, and the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, while the feature version was broadcast on PBS last month.
Painter Kehinde Wiley has won acclaim for recasting historic portraiture with African-American men as his subjects, subverting expectations of both who should be framed in heroic or classical modes, and how African-American men should be depicted. For his eponymous 2012 show, Wiley challenged himself to turn his attention to female subjects for the first time. Dupre follows the artist as he scouts for models on the streets of Brooklyn – some skeptical of his intent – and then crafts his new portraits. Addressing questions of race, representation, visibility, and class, his work is provocative and knowing, and its impact on his models is particularly well captured here.
what (not) to doc 