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In the capital of the Confederacy, a new monument and a chance to change the narrative
In speech at VMFA for Rumors of War unveiling, @GovernorVA says artist Kehinde Wiley came to Virginia and "saw beyond Richmond's relics."
"We are changing," he says. "And Virginia is better for it."
https://www.facebook.com/myVMFA/videos/995984914099914/ …
Link to tweet
Graham Moomaw Retweeted
NEW: Read this beautiful @SchneiderG story about the newest statue installed on Monument Ave in Richmond and what it says about the former cradle of the Confederacy
Link to tweet
Virginia Politics
In the capital of the Confederacy, a new monument and a chance to change the narrative
The “Rumors of War” statue by artist Kehinde Wiley was unveiled in Richmond on Tuesday. The sculpture depicts an African American man with a crown of dreadlocks, wearing urban clothes and sneakers and sitting astride a horse (Steve Helber/AP)
By Gregory S. Schneider
Dec. 10, 2019 at 7:15 p.m. EST
RICHMOND — A new monument has risen on ground where Confederate veterans lived their final years, and this city is counting on it to chase out some old ghosts.
Two blocks from Stonewall Jackson on his horse, next door to the headquarters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, “Rumors of War” by artist Kehinde Wiley was unveiled Tuesday afternoon before a rain-soaked crowd of some 5,000. It both echoes and shatters the conventions of this city of monuments, as the first major equestrian statue here in a century.
[With a brass band blaring, artist Kehinde Wiley goes off to war with Confederate statues]
The massive figure stands more than 27 feet high — 60,000 pounds of bronze and stone, beautiful and intimidating. But unlike the Confederate giants on Monument Avenue just two blocks away, this rider is an African American man, a modern urbanite with Nike shoes and spiky locks of hair.
....
Gregory S. Schneider
Greg Schneider covers Virginia from the Richmond bureau. He was The Washington Post's business editor for more than seven years, and before that served stints as deputy business editor, national security editor and technology editor. He has also covered aviation security, the auto industry and the defense industry for The Post. Follow https://twitter.com/SchneiderG
In the capital of the Confederacy, a new monument and a chance to change the narrative
The “Rumors of War” statue by artist Kehinde Wiley was unveiled in Richmond on Tuesday. The sculpture depicts an African American man with a crown of dreadlocks, wearing urban clothes and sneakers and sitting astride a horse (Steve Helber/AP)
By Gregory S. Schneider
Dec. 10, 2019 at 7:15 p.m. EST
RICHMOND — A new monument has risen on ground where Confederate veterans lived their final years, and this city is counting on it to chase out some old ghosts.
Two blocks from Stonewall Jackson on his horse, next door to the headquarters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, “Rumors of War” by artist Kehinde Wiley was unveiled Tuesday afternoon before a rain-soaked crowd of some 5,000. It both echoes and shatters the conventions of this city of monuments, as the first major equestrian statue here in a century.
[With a brass band blaring, artist Kehinde Wiley goes off to war with Confederate statues]
The massive figure stands more than 27 feet high — 60,000 pounds of bronze and stone, beautiful and intimidating. But unlike the Confederate giants on Monument Avenue just two blocks away, this rider is an African American man, a modern urbanite with Nike shoes and spiky locks of hair.
....
Gregory S. Schneider
Greg Schneider covers Virginia from the Richmond bureau. He was The Washington Post's business editor for more than seven years, and before that served stints as deputy business editor, national security editor and technology editor. He has also covered aviation security, the auto industry and the defense industry for The Post. Follow https://twitter.com/SchneiderG
Wiley’s $2M ‘Rumors of War’ is an edition of three. Where will the other two go?
By Ned Oliver -December 11, 2019
Artist Kehinde Wiley unveiled his 27-foot-tall sculptural response to Richmond's Confederate monuments at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which purchased the first of three editions of the statue. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
Kehinde Wiley unveiled his 27-foot-tall response to Richmond’s Confederate monuments in Richmond Tuesday. According to his agreement with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which paid $2 million for the bronze sculpture, he can cast two more full-size editions. ... Where would the artist like to see them go?
“It’s a really important question to ask,” Wiley said Tuesday. “Obviously the South has any number of these types of monuments and it’s a really great replacement act or confrontation with history. But it’s also kind of cool to see it in places like New York, where it’s just like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ It’s like, Times Square, it fell out of the sky. And there’s kind of a weirdness to it, which as an artist I kind of enjoy as well.”
....
Wiley said he was inspired to create the work during a 2016 visit to Richmond, where the VMFA was hosting a travelling exhibit of his work. His first monumental-scale sculpture, it depicts a black man with dreadlocks astride a muscular horse, closely mimicking a sculpture of Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart a few blocks from the museum on Richmond’s Monument Avenue.
That fact, says VMFA Director Alex Nyerges, means that “regardless of whether the second and third will ever be cast and installed, no place on the planet is more appropriate or more special than right here on Arthur Ashe Boulevard here in Richmond Virginia.”
As for the $2 million price tag, which the museum has not previously disclosed but made public in response to a Freedom of Information Act Request, Nyerges stressed that the purchase was funded through endowment earnings and private donations rather than tax dollars, as with all the museum’s acquisitions.
....
Ned Oliver
Ned, a Lexington native, has a decade’s worth of experience in journalism, beginning at The News-Gazette in Lexington, and including stints at the Berkshire Eagle, in Berkshire County, Mass., and the Times-Dispatch and Style Weekly in Richmond. He also has the awards to show for it, including taking a pair of first-place honors at the Virginia Press Association awards earlier this year for investigative reporting and feature writing. He is a graduate of Bard College at Simon’s Rock, in Great Barrington, Mass. Contact him at noliver@virginiamercury.com
By Ned Oliver -December 11, 2019
Artist Kehinde Wiley unveiled his 27-foot-tall sculptural response to Richmond's Confederate monuments at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which purchased the first of three editions of the statue. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
Kehinde Wiley unveiled his 27-foot-tall response to Richmond’s Confederate monuments in Richmond Tuesday. According to his agreement with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which paid $2 million for the bronze sculpture, he can cast two more full-size editions. ... Where would the artist like to see them go?
“It’s a really important question to ask,” Wiley said Tuesday. “Obviously the South has any number of these types of monuments and it’s a really great replacement act or confrontation with history. But it’s also kind of cool to see it in places like New York, where it’s just like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ It’s like, Times Square, it fell out of the sky. And there’s kind of a weirdness to it, which as an artist I kind of enjoy as well.”
....
Wiley said he was inspired to create the work during a 2016 visit to Richmond, where the VMFA was hosting a travelling exhibit of his work. His first monumental-scale sculpture, it depicts a black man with dreadlocks astride a muscular horse, closely mimicking a sculpture of Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart a few blocks from the museum on Richmond’s Monument Avenue.
That fact, says VMFA Director Alex Nyerges, means that “regardless of whether the second and third will ever be cast and installed, no place on the planet is more appropriate or more special than right here on Arthur Ashe Boulevard here in Richmond Virginia.”
As for the $2 million price tag, which the museum has not previously disclosed but made public in response to a Freedom of Information Act Request, Nyerges stressed that the purchase was funded through endowment earnings and private donations rather than tax dollars, as with all the museum’s acquisitions.
....
Ned Oliver
Ned, a Lexington native, has a decade’s worth of experience in journalism, beginning at The News-Gazette in Lexington, and including stints at the Berkshire Eagle, in Berkshire County, Mass., and the Times-Dispatch and Style Weekly in Richmond. He also has the awards to show for it, including taking a pair of first-place honors at the Virginia Press Association awards earlier this year for investigative reporting and feature writing. He is a graduate of Bard College at Simon’s Rock, in Great Barrington, Mass. Contact him at noliver@virginiamercury.com
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