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Kehinde Wiley (American, born 1977). Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps, 2005. Oil on canvas, 108 x 108 in. (274.3 x 274.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Partial gift of Suzi and Andrew Booke Cohen in memory of Ilene R. Booke and in honor of Arnold L. Lehman, Mary Smith Dorward Fund, and William K. Jacobs, Jr. Fund, 2015.53. © Kehinde Wiley. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
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Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748-1825). Napoleon Crossing the Alps (Bonaparte franchissant le Grand-Saint-Bernard), 1801. Oil on canvas, 102 1/3 x 87 in. (261 x 221 cm). Collection of Château de Malmaison. (Photo: Courtesy RMN-GP)
Exhibition
Jacques-Louis David Meets Kehinde Wiley
24 Jan 2020 – 10 May 2020
Regular hours
- Friday
- 11:00 – 20:00
- Saturday
- 11:00 – 20:00
- Sunday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Wednesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- 11:00 – 18:00
Address
- 200 Eastern Parkway
- New York
New York - NY 11238-6052
- United States
About
Jacques-Louis David Meets Kehinde Wiley brings an iconic painting from our collection—Kehinde Wiley’s Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps (2005)—into dialogue with its early nineteenth-century source painting, Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1800-1801). The two paintings, displayed together for the very first time, are on view in consecutive exhibitions at the Château de Malmaison from October 9, 2019 to January 6, 2020, and at the Brooklyn Museum from January 24 to May 10, 2020. The exhibition questions how ideas of race, masculinity, representation, power, heroics, and agency play out within the realm of portraiture. The Brooklyn presentation marks the first display of David’s painting in New York, and Wiley helps highlight this momentous occasion by consulting on the exhibition design. Video also accompanies the project, incorporating Wiley’s perspectives on how the Western canon, French portrait tradition, and legacies of colonialism influence his own practice. The exhibition represents an intimate conversation between two key artists of the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries and illuminates how images construct history, convey notions of power and leadership, and monumentalize figures in the form of aggrandizing icons.
