Kehinde Wiley on Protests’ Results: ‘I’m Not Impressed Yet’

THE NEW YORK TIMES 

By Dionne Searcey

The artist Kehinde Wiley, who has been stationed in Dakar since February, said that watching what has been happening in America from across the Atlantic has “felt like a bit of a freak show.” Abdoulaye N'dao for The New York Times

When Covid-19 started spreading across the globe in late winter and some nations began sealing their borders, the American artist Kehinde Wiley was abroad and quickly had to decide where he wanted to ride out the coming viral storm. He chose Dakar, Senegal, site of his spacious, magnificently windswept Black Rock studio complex on the sea. For the past year, the West African studio has been home to a revolving cast of painters, photographers, authors and others who were selected in Mr. Wiley’s first round of his residency program, designed to offer artists the time and space to pursue their craft. Watching from across the Atlantic as America roils, deaths from the coronavirus mount, protests swell over police killings and Confederate statues fall has “felt like a bit of a freak show,” said Mr. Wiley. [More]