A couple of weeks ago I read about an intriguing exhibition
I’d like to go to at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. It features a
black US artist, Kehinde Wiley.
You may have seen photos of his Barack Obama portrait. Or
you may have had the unexpected delight of seeing Wiley’s gloriously detailed
and strikingly colourful portrait of himself standing in for Napoleon in a famous painting of him leading his men over the Alps.
Housed in Napoleon’s wife’s home, Chateau de Malmaison, outside Paris, it’s a fantastic
reimagining of the painting of the French emperor in which the original artist, Jacques-Louis David meets Wiley. I
meant to blog about it before, and I haven’t, though of course I posted about
it on Facebook and told a few friends about it.
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| Kehinde Wiley's riff on Jacques-Louis David's Napoleon portrait |
Anyway, on learning of the Walthamstow exhibition, Wiley’s
first dedicated show in the UK, I got all excited. There’s links to William
Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, of course. Having recently bought a
house built in a period heavily influenced by Morris, there’s plenty to pique
my interior design interest.
Then there’s the link with that incredible book The YellowWallpaper (read many years ago when I was first at uni), about a woman trapped
in a room and all but live-blogging her mental breakdown. Kehinde Wiley cites
this as a major theme for his Walthamstow show.
And then there’s the not unimportant matter of what topic I
intend to research for my MA on Literary London. And my admiration for Sarah Waters, whose last
novel but one, The Little Stranger, was a mock gothic affair in which what’s
hidden behind the wall coverings was a major plot point.
So don’t be surprised when I start retro-blogging – or
latergramm-ing – some of these things as they slot into place and take on new
significances. The road trip to Paris that ended up being about that day at
Malmaison as much as anything, has its own tales to tell, for starters. And
surely tales need telling.
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