Sculpting Black Heroes
Dive into the layers of meaning behind Kehinde Wiley's "Likunt Daniel Ailin (The World Stage: Israel)," 2013
Likunt Daniel Ailin (The World Stage: Israel) (2013) by Kehinde WileyPortland Art Museum
Kehinde Wiley created this powerful bronze sculpture as part of an ongoing project to represent Black and brown men within the Western tradition of heroic portraiture.
Initially, Wiley painted these men in poses borrowed from the work of Renaissance and Baroque masters.
Later, in 2006, his work expanded to include sculpture to embrace the “World Stage,” depicting men from Mumbai, Dakar, Rio de Janeiro, and other global cities.
This classical-style bust is a monumental portrait of Likunt Daniel Ailin, an Ethiopian Jewish Israeli man whom Wiley met in Tel Aviv. Ailin’s story and situation intersected with Wiley’s ongoing investigation of the tensions of identity, place, and history.
Wiley was fascinated by Israel as a nation of people escaping social, economic, and religious persecution elsewhere only to find themselves enmeshed in systems of discrimination in their new homeland. Ethiopian Jews have encountered persistent racism and discrimination.
Wiley accentuates the contemporary political context of the work in a few ways. He incorporates the model’s own shirt and afro pick into the sculpture.
Likunt Daniel Ailin (The World Stage: Israel) (2013) by Kehinde WileyPortland Art Museum
The Hebrew sentence at the base of the sculpture asks, “What would make it possible for us to live together?”
It is a reference to words spoken by Rodney King, a Black man whose brutal beating by Los Angeles police in 1991 was caught on videotape.
When a jury acquitted the police officers of all charges in the beating, Los Angeles erupted in riots. King made a public plea for calm, asking, “Can we all get along?”
Wiley’s work simultaneously addresses racial tensions in Israel and the United States.
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