The U.S. Department of State reportedly wants to sell a painting deemed “very woke” that was commissioned by the federal government during former President Barack Obama’s (D) administration, and taxpayers footed the bill.
The painting by Kehinde Wiley was recently pulled from a wall at the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic, the New York Times reported Monday.
The U.S. Department of State’s Director of Art in Embassies program, Erin Scavino, has called the piece “very woke” and “aesthetically terrifying,” while U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Leah Campos shared a video of it being taken down and replaced with a patriotic image.
“In the Trump Administration and under my leadership we are turning away from globalist and woke ideologies and instead embracing American patriotism and the beauty of our great country!” she wrote in a social media post featuring video of crews removing Wiley’s artwork:
Now, the State Department is working to determine if officials may lawfully sell the painting, per the Times:
In a statement on Monday about the removal of the painting, a State Department spokeswoman did not directly address the artwork. The statement instead criticized comments Wiley had made in 2023 about his “Judith and Holofernes” painting, which he described as “a play on the ‘kill whitey’ thing.” It also cited accusations of sexual assault that Wiley has denied.
“The work of an individual with such violent and racist words and depictions has no place in the America First State Department,” the spokeswoman said.
The painting is titled “Young Artists After Siamesas 1960,” according to Artlyst.
Wiley painted Obama’s official portrait that was unveiled at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in 2018, Breitbart News reported at the time.
“One of Wiley’s older paintings has received renewed attention, as it provocatively reimagines a Renaissance-era painting of the heroic biblical figure Judith beheading the evil enemy commander, Holofernes, and thus saving her people,” the outlet said. “Wiley’s work … shows a black woman holding a sword in one hand and the disembodied head of a white woman in the other.”
Also in 2018, the Media Research Center’s (MRC) NewsBusters pointed out that Wiley “previously created two paintings of black women holding white women’s severed heads, making him the art world’s equivalent of Donald Trump severed-head comedienne Kathy Griffin.”
“Additionally, Wiley, described in New York Magazine as ‘possibly the wealthiest painter of his generation,’ outsources much of ‘his’ painting to China to ‘cut costs.’ Establishment press coverage has virtually ignored these components of Wiley’s background, but their descriptions of Obama’s involvement in selecting him reveal his almost certain awareness of the artist’s full portfolio,” the report stated.
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