You are invited to visit the studios of 2010-11 Studio Museum artists in residence Simone Leigh, Kamau Amu Patton, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya as they prepare for their upcoming summer
exhibition! This is a rare opportunity to meet the artists and get an advance look at their newest work. Conceived at the formation of the Museum nearly 40 years ago, the Artists-in-Residence Program remains central to the Museum’s mission.
The Artists-in-Residence Open Studios event is free and open to all.
Though we're sure the tears are still flowing as a result of Brazil's surprising early exit from the World Cup, it hasn't stopped its advertising community from saying oh well, on to 2014. Sao Paulo-based shop Africa (yep, it's confusing at first) unveiled the official emblem for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, with notable countrymen including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of the Brazil 2014 Organising Committee and FIFA Executive Committee member Ricardo Teixeira, FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter as well as former Seleçao players Cafu, Carlos Alberto Torres, Romario and 1994 FIFA World Cup-winning coach Carlos Alberto Parreira all in the house.
Africa beat out two-dozen other agencies with this rather colorful design, which carries a theme of "inspiration" and was handpicked by judges including Gisele Bundchen. We're not one to argue with her.
A celebration of true football, For Africa, For Football. For the insane love of the game we possess that unites us beyond borders. Bringing Football back to its roots, because love is football.
"Journey of Football" is the latest in Puma's LOVE=FOOTBALL campaign leading up to the World Cup in South Africa. The spot pays tribute to the soul of the game of football. Fans paint their faces with country colors; kids and teenagers play football in the streets; players and fans erupt with country pride and team happiness when a goal is scored. Set to the tune of "Going On" by Gnarls Barkley, the spot features PUMA players Samuel Eto'o, Gervinho, Emmanuel Eboue and Mohammed Zidan.
For more information, head to www.pumafootball.com
The Future has gone GLOBAL!!! It is international month so grab your passports and Let’s GO! Art, Music, Fashion and Sports transcend from country to country and with new technology being developed daily the world is getting smaller and smaller. Kehinde Wiley is one of our favorite artist at The Future.
To herald the start of a World Cup year and to celebrate PUMA’s long-standing partnership with African football (the Company sponsors 12 African teams, five of which have qualified for World Cup), PUMA has partnered with Kehinde Wiley, one of the world’s most sought-after artists, and commissioned him to create four original works of art inspired by three of football’s most decorated players. Wiley is best known for using contemporary African American men in poses taken from the annals of art history and for his distinctive use of elaborate, graphic and colorful wallpaper-like backgrounds.
PUMA-sponsored football stars; Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon, John Mensah of Ghana and Emmanuel Eboué of Ivory Coast sat for Wiley as he painted three individual portraits of each player wearing their national team kits. A fourth ‘Unity’ portrait was painted with all three players together, symbolizing the united countries of Africa. The players’ pose was inspired by a pendant Wiley discovered while touring the Continent. In the ‘Unity’ portrait, the players are wearing the PUMA Unity Kit, a limited edition uniform designed to be a third kit shared by all African teams, symbolizing unity. The brown pigment in the kit is a customized pantone PUMA created by mixing actual soil samples from four different African nations-Ghana, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire and Mozambique. The brown to blue color gradient represents the soil to the sky progression. In each portrait, Wiley captures the essence of each player using the rich heritage, customs and people of Africa as inspiration. “PUMA is fortunate to have partnered with such a pivotal artist as Kehinde Wiley,” said Antonio Bertone, Chief Marketing Office, PUMA AG. “His keen eye for design, color and composition, brilliantly capture the spirit and passion of Africa – and the players he painted. His style perfectly complements the vibrant culture of modern Africa and the PUMA brand.”
The individual portraits, measuring 5 feet by 6 feet and the ‘Unity’ portrait measuring 9 feet by 12 feet, were unveiled in Berlin on January 20, 2010. The portraits will then travel as an exhibition beginning in February to Paris, London, New York, Beijing and Milan, ending in South Africa in June for the World Cup.
PUMA, best known for the sponsorship of 12 African national football teams, is expanding its reach beyond the pitch by creating African-inspired lifestyle products and artwork that is relevant and understandable to a younger generation in tandem with Wiley. To that end, Kehinde Wiley has also lent some of his unforgettable patterns to the PUMA Spring Summer 2010 PUMA Africa lifestyle collection of apparel, footwear and accessories. The PUMA Africa collection uses seven graphic patterns from Wiley’s existing work and integrates them throughout the bright, bold, color-blocking patterns of the collection. The collaboration between PUMA and Kehinde Wiley is part of a larger Africa-themed campaign PUMA is embarking on in advance of World Cup 2010, which will be held in South Africa in June.
Born in Los Angeles to an African American mother and a Nigerian father, Wiley describes his relationship with Africa as “one of searching and longing.” Kehinde, which means “second born of twins” in Yoruba, grew up without knowing his father and curiosity led him to Nigeria at the age of 20 to retrace his roots. Upon meeting his father, Wiley completed a series of portraits of him, and later, in 2007, returned to Africa to compile a body of work entitled “The World Stage: Africa Lagos-Dakar,” which was exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem. At age 32, he represents the African-American cultural explosion that has gripped the world. With an MFA from the esteemed Yale University School of Art, Kehinde Wiley’s work is sought after in major galleries around the world.
Kehinde Wiley Legends of Unity 2010 World Cup PUMA will be on view in:
Kehinde Wiley is a New York based painter from Los Angeles who has situated himself firmly within art history's tradition of portrait painting. Wiley, as the contemporary descendent of a long line of portraitists including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Ingres, and others, appropriates the signs and visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, opulent, majestic, and sublime in his representations of young, urban, black men.
The subjects and stylistic references for his paintings are juxtaposed inversions of each other, forcing ambiguity and provocative perplexity to pervade his imagery. By applying the visual vocabulary and conventions of glorification, history, wealth, power, and prestige to subject matter drawn from the urban fabric in which he is embedded, Wiley presents his young men as both heroic and pathetic, aestheticized and reified, autonomous and manipulated. Ultimately, Wiley's practice disturbs and interrupts tropes of portrait painting to locate, in his words, "class struggle at the level of sign". Wiley’s paintings often blur the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation. Rendered in a realistic mode –– while making references to specific old master paintings –– Wiley creates a fusion of period styles, ranging from French rococo, Islamic architecture and West African textile design to urban hip–hop and the "Sea Foam Green" of a Martha Stewart Interiors color swatch. Wiley’s slightly larger than life size figures are depicted in a heroic manner, as their poses connote power and spiritual awakening. Wiley’s portrayal of masculinity is filtered through these poses of power and spirituality.
His portraits are based on photographs of young men who Wiley sees on the street, begun last year with men mostly from Harlem’s 125th Street, the series now includes models from the South Central neighborhood where he was born. Dressed in street clothes, they are asked to assume poses from the paintings of Renaissance masters, such as Titian and Tiepolo. Wiley also embraces French rococo ornamentation; his references to this style compliment his embrace of hip–hop culture. Similarly, the poses of his figures appear to derive as much from contemporary hip–hop culture as from Renaissance paintings.
The artist describes his approach as "interrogating the notion of the master painter, at once critical and complicit." Wiley’s figurative paintings "quote historical sources and position young black men within that field of power.” In this manner, Wiley’s paintings fuse history and style in a unique and contemporary manner.
