Kehinde Wiley To Unveil Monumental Sculpture In Times Square

Times Square Arts, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) and Sean Kelly, New York unveil artist Kehinde Wiley's first monumental public sculpture Rumors of War in Times Square, New York - Friday, September 27, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. on the Broadway Plaza between 46th and 47th Streets. The event on September 27 will include remarks from the artist and partners.

Rumors of War will be exhibited in Times Square September 27 to December 1. Following its presentation in Times Square, Rumors of War, a recent acquisition to VMFA's world-class collection, will be permanently installed at the museum's entrance on historic Arthur Ashe Boulevard in Richmond, Virginia.

Kehinde Wiley is a world-renowned visual artist, best known for his vibrant portrayals of contemporary African-American and African-Diasporic individuals that subvert the hierarchies and conventions of European and American portraiture. Rumors of War, his largest work to date, continues Wiley's career-long investigation of the politics of representation, race, gender, and power. With this new sculpture, Wiley returns to equestrian portraiture to engage its complicated visual rhetoric of warfare and heroism on an epic scale.

Mounted proudly on its large stone pedestal, Wiley's monumental bronze sculpture, Rumors of War, is the artist's direct response to the ubiquitous Confederate sculptures that populate the United States, particularly in the South. Sitting astride a massive horse in a striking pose, Wiley's young, African-American subject presents a powerful visual repositioning of young black men in our public consciousness while directly engaging the national conversation around monuments and their role in perpetuating incomplete narratives and contemporary inequities.