Portrait Of Nick Cave, Nadezhda Polovtseva 2017

Kehinde Wiley made this portrait of Nick Cave, titled ‘Nadezhda Polovtseva’, at an unspecified date. The image engages with a history of portraiture, and with the conventions surrounding images of social elites. Wiley is known for his portraits of Black subjects that are styled after classical paintings. Note here the ornate, old-world interior and period furniture – the artist is explicitly referencing the visual vocabulary of aristocratic power. In co-opting this imagery, Wiley asks us to reconsider who gets represented in art museums, and in what poses. His work thus questions art as an elitist institution. To understand the painting fully, one might look into the archives of portraiture, and trace the ways artists have communicated power through visual means. The meaning of art is always contingent on its social context.