The fallout has been swift. The Pérez Art Museum Miami has canceled a solo exhibition on Wiley's work that was slated to open next month and run through Miami Art Week before closing in January 2025. A PAMM spokesperson tells New Times it will be replaced with a show of PAMM's permanent collection.
"Pérez Art Museum Miami has suspended plans to exhibit 'Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence,'" the spokesperson said in a statement provided to New Times. "The museum will showcase works from its permanent collection, featuring artists Morris Louis, Richard Serra, Julie Mehretu, Richard Dupont, Jennie C. Jones, and Alfredo Jaar, among many others. Centered around sculpture, the exhibition is curated by PAMM director Franklin Sirmans."
On May 19, Wiley, an American of Nigerian ancestry, was accused of sexual assault by a fellow artist, British-born, Ghana-based Joseph Awuah-Darko, in an Instagram post. Darko alleged that on June 9, 2021, Wiley had "inappropriately groped" him before making a more violent assault the same night. The two were not familiar and had only just met that night, according to Darko. He also states that reporting the incident in Ghana, "where anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiments are prevalent," would have been "problematic at best — dangerous at worst." Awuah-Darko, whose family is one of the wealthiest in Ghana with a net worth of $650 million, according to ArtNews, is seeking legal action against Wiley.
Wiley denied the allegations in an Instagram post, which has since been deleted. In a statement, he called the accusations from Awuah-Darko "false, disturbing, and defamatory."
On June 10, two more individuals came forward with their own allegations. Derrick Ingram, a prominent activist in the Black Lives Matter movement, also took to Instagram to accuse Wiley of raping him in 2011. The following day, artist Terrell Armistead came forward on Instagram, accusing Wiley of groping and sexually assaulting him in 2010. Both have pledged to take legal action. Both posts mimicked the style of Awuah-Darko's, with white text on a black background.
On June 11, Wiley made another Instagram post showing messages between himself and Awuah-Darko, accusing him of "aggressively pursuing a relationship with me" over a period of years. He also described their initial encounter in June 2021 as "consensual." Jennifer Barrett, an attorney working with Wiley, has described the allegations against her client as baseless, saying, "Posting something to Instagram doesn't make it true."
The lack of concrete evidence from accusers has not prevented museums from distancing themselves from Wiley. In addition to PAMM, the Minneapolis Institute of Art also canceled its version of "An Archeology of Silence." The exhibition, a survey of Wiley's work, was due to travel to Minnesota in 2025 after its stint in Miami. It was originally staged at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 2023 and traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the same year. A museum in Omaha, Nebraska, the Joslyn Art Museum, also canceled an upcoming show of Wiley's work.
Wiley is best known for his commissioned portrait of President Barack Obama for the National Portrait Gallery.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
The Wiley painting had been prominently displayed in a first-floor gallery adjacent to the museum lobby and was replaced with works by Tschabalala Self, according to the employee. The piece, which had been on extended view, had apparently been scheduled to come down prior to the allegations becoming known. The museum confirmed this in a statement to New Times: "One painting by Kehinde Wiley, along with pieces by other artists, were rotated as part of a previously planned exhibition update, following a long-term display."
One Miami institution that has yet to take down its Wiley paintings is the Rubell Museum in Allapattah. On a visit to the museum earlier this month, New Times saw several paintings by Wiley on view. Logistics may be a consideration. One of the Wiley works, titled Sleep, is a massive 11-foot-by-25-foot canvas that would likely be difficult to remove on short notice given the museum's relatively small staff. (Disclosure: I'm a former employee of the Rubell Museum.)
Representatives for the museum declined to comment, adding the Rubells were traveling and unavailable. Museum director Juan Valadez declined to provide comment when reached directly.
Wiley's fame as an artist stems from his baroque-style portraits of African-American subjects in contemporary fashion, often copying the same positions as historical artworks in order to critique the Eurocentric nature of art history. Works by Wiley in the Rubell collection, for instance, include takes on paintings by Diego Velásquez and Anthony van Dyck. He became a household name in 2018 after being commissioned to paint President Barack Obama for the National Portrait Gallery. The unconventional portrait famously depicts the president sitting in a chair surrounded by thick foliage.
Wiley's idiosyncratic style, epitomized by the Obama portrait, has as many admirers as it does detractors. A New Yorker profile in 2022 called him "one of the most influential figures in global Black culture," and he is extraordinarily popular with collectors and museums; institutions across the country have collected his art, and his last touring show, "A New Republic," opened at the Brooklyn Museum in 2015 before traveling to six additional cities. At the same time, he's been lambasted for "selling kitsch" by Washington Post critic Sebastian Smee, whose review of the opening leg of "An Archeology of Silence" compared his art to AI-generated imagery: "His art is algorithmic. It's probabilistic. It's art that leads with the concept, caring little for the sanctity and surprise of intuitive decision-making."
