Kehinde Wiley Requests to Buy Back Painting Removed by State Department
Trump officials removed the work from an embassy in the Dominican Republic in August, labeling it "woke."
Kehinde Wiley has asked to buy back his painting "Young Artists After Siamesas 1960” (2015) after the State Department removed it from the United States Embassy in the Dominican Republic last month, according to a letter the artist sent to President Donald Trump on September 24.
Citing the artist's "violent and racist words and depictions," the US State Department took down the painting from its Santo Domingo embassy in August at the behest of Trump-backed officials Leah Campos, US Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, and Erin Scavino, the head of the State Department's Art in Embassies program. In a statement shared with Hyperallergic in August, a spokesperson said that elected officials and the State Department were in discussions with lawyers to "ascertain whether the art can be sold."
"If your administration has determined that it no longer wishes to display the work, I would like to ask for the opportunity to purchase it back," Wiley writes in his letter, which Sean Kelly Gallery shared on social media earlier this week. "I created this painting for a particular place and with a particular purpose. I spent two years studying the work of Dominican artists and worked with young artists in Santo Domingo in making it."
Neither Wiley nor Sean Kelly Gallery, which has represented the artist since 2010, has responded yet to Hyperallergic's request for comment.
