Kehinde Wiley Responds to the Trump Administration’s Removal of His Painting With an ‘Aesthetically Terrifying’ T-shirt
Artist Kehinde Wiley responded indirectly to controversy over his 2013 painting Young Artists After Siamesas 1960, formerly displayed at the US Embassy in the Dominican Republic, by selling a $120 black T-shirt printed with the phrase “aesthetically terrifying.” The phrase came from Erin Scavino, director of Art in Embassies, who used it in a podcast interview with Sean Spicer, while an unearthed April radio interview cited by the New York Times quotes US ambassador Leah Campos describing the painting as “a picnic in a park with flowers and some lesbians.” The work was commissioned by the US State Department during the Obama administration in 2013, and Campos said in August that the Trump administration was swapping it for an American-flag image as part of an effort to emphasize “American patriotism and the beauty of our great country,” accompanied by Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” The article also notes a parallel dispute at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where workers began disassembling Joel Shapiro’s 24-foot-tall sculpture Blue (gifted in 2019) after what the New York Times described as targeting following President Trump’s takeover of the center, and that the board voted in December to inscribe Trump’s name on the facade, prompting ongoing litigation.
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This story was covered in AI Authorship Wars and Restitution Reckonings