92 Time February 15/February 22, 2021
The Black Renaissance 25 WORKS
Since their unveiling in 2018, Kehinde
Wiley’s portrait of former President Barack
Obama and Amy Sherald’s portrait of
former First Lady Michelle Obama have
drawn more than 4 million people to make
the pilgrimage to the National Portrait
Gallery in Washington, D.C.
The paintings are significant for what
they represent: the first Black First
Couple in the gallery, displayed beside
portraits of slaveholders and rendered bythe first Black artists given the official
commission.
But even without the weight of
history, the portraits are remarkable.
The President’s intensity—his brow
furrowed as he leans off the edge of his
seat—is softened only slightly by Wiley’s
floral background, rife with symbolism:
chrysanthemums for Chicago, jasmine for
Hawaii, African lilies for Kenya.
The First Lady, in elegant repose and
pictured in Sherald’s signature gray scale,
exists in and out of time and tradition, herdress influenced both by the quilts woven
by the women of Gee’s Bend—an artist
collective made up of the descendants
of slaves in Alabama—and by the crisp
modernism of Piet Mondrian.
The portraits became a social media
sensation, with one viral photo capturing
a toddler gazing up in awe at Sherald’s
depiction of the First Lady. Since the two
works were unveiled, Sherald and Wiley
have shot to artistic stardom, and Black
portraiture has only continued to explode
in popularity.Heavy
In his 2018 memoir,
writer Kiese Laymon
uses his upbringing
to weigh the cost
of loving honestly
even when believing
in long-standing
lies holds a deeply
familiar comfort.
Get Out
Jordan Peele’s
directorial debut,
which skewers
white people’s
appropriation of
Black culture, is one
of the funniest and
most original horror
films of a generation.A Seat at the Table
A serene affirmation
of Black identity and
art, Solange’s album
bears witness to her
personal growth—
the pain, pleasure
and joy of being a
Black woman, on her
own terms.The Hate U Give
In Angie Thomas’
debut YA novel
inspired by the
Black Lives Matter
movement, a teen
witnesses a police
officer fatally shoot
her childhood best
friend, propelling her
into activism.O.J.: Made in
America
Ezra Edelman’s
Oscar-winning
2016 documentary
examines the
athlete’s rise and fall
in the wider context
of entrenched racism
in Los Angeles and
the country at large.Sweat
Lynn Nottage won
a Pulitzer for this
2015 play about
struggling factory
workers, both
Black and white,
in Reading, Pa.—a
cry of anguish for a
fractured America.The Obama Portraits