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131 Dying Gaul, Roman 1st Century, 2022, bronze
Transcript
ABRAM JACKSON: Gazing downward, his arm braced on his leg, this young man embodies quiet strength. Self-possession.
It’s partly inspired by a 2000-year-old Roman sculpture. “The Dying Gaul” portrays a fallen opponent of Attalus I of Pergamon in a similar pose, showing composure in the face of death. Wiley re-envisions that sculpture in the form of a young Black man, leaving us to imagine what moment he may be confronting, with courage and fortitude.
This sculpture resonates strongly with the Reverend Wanda Johnson. Her son Oscar Grant was killed by a BART police officer, at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, in 2009.
WANDA JOHNSON: I think about Oscar's friends the night when he was on the platform, and then seeing his friends get abused by the police officer, I seen his strength. And how he seen the injustice. And he stood up, not knowing that that would be his last time to stand up. But yet willing to die for his friends, because of standing up for what was right.
ABRAM JACKSON: All the art we’ll see today was made in the last year or so. It’s a response to the murder of George Floyd, and to the state-sanctioned violence directed at so many other Black people in this country. Here’s the artist:
KEHINDE WILEY: It resonates here because this is our present. We need to be able to come to terms with so many people being slain in our streets - we have to come to terms with state power.
Each one of these losses is handled and dealt with by families and by loved ones who hopefully will carry the individual significance of those people on. But the job of my work is to be able, not to just create a political statement, but to create a much more personal, poetic, spiritual one, that talks about the humanity of all of us, that talks about the ties between those great historical, monumental European works, and some of those great historical, monumental, young Black and Brown kids who surround us every day. It's the desire to be seen, the desire to be alive, that the work is about.
ABRAM JACKSON: Our next audio stop is the oval painting nearby, of a man in a red shirt and white cap.
Image: Kehinde Wiley (American, born 1977), “Dying Gaul, After a Roman sculpture of the 1st Century,” 2021. Bronze, 21 1/16 x 18 7/8 x 47 1/16 in., 156.53 lb. (53.5 x 48 x 119.5 cm, 71 kg), base: 35 7/16 x 27 9/16 x 55 1/8 in. (90 x 70 x 140 cm). © Kehinde Wiley. Courtesy of Galerie Templon, Paris. Photo: Ugo Carmeni
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By Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
5
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Transcript
ABRAM JACKSON: Gazing downward, his arm braced on his leg, this young man embodies quiet strength. Self-possession.
It’s partly inspired by a 2000-year-old Roman sculpture. “The Dying Gaul” portrays a fallen opponent of Attalus I of Pergamon in a similar pose, showing composure in the face of death. Wiley re-envisions that sculpture in the form of a young Black man, leaving us to imagine what moment he may be confronting, with courage and fortitude.
This sculpture resonates strongly with the Reverend Wanda Johnson. Her son Oscar Grant was killed by a BART police officer, at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, in 2009.
WANDA JOHNSON: I think about Oscar's friends the night when he was on the platform, and then seeing his friends get abused by the police officer, I seen his strength. And how he seen the injustice. And he stood up, not knowing that that would be his last time to stand up. But yet willing to die for his friends, because of standing up for what was right.
ABRAM JACKSON: All the art we’ll see today was made in the last year or so. It’s a response to the murder of George Floyd, and to the state-sanctioned violence directed at so many other Black people in this country. Here’s the artist:
KEHINDE WILEY: It resonates here because this is our present. We need to be able to come to terms with so many people being slain in our streets - we have to come to terms with state power.
Each one of these losses is handled and dealt with by families and by loved ones who hopefully will carry the individual significance of those people on. But the job of my work is to be able, not to just create a political statement, but to create a much more personal, poetic, spiritual one, that talks about the humanity of all of us, that talks about the ties between those great historical, monumental European works, and some of those great historical, monumental, young Black and Brown kids who surround us every day. It's the desire to be seen, the desire to be alive, that the work is about.
ABRAM JACKSON: Our next audio stop is the oval painting nearby, of a man in a red shirt and white cap.
Image: Kehinde Wiley (American, born 1977), “Dying Gaul, After a Roman sculpture of the 1st Century,” 2021. Bronze, 21 1/16 x 18 7/8 x 47 1/16 in., 156.53 lb. (53.5 x 48 x 119.5 cm, 71 kg), base: 35 7/16 x 27 9/16 x 55 1/8 in. (90 x 70 x 140 cm). © Kehinde Wiley. Courtesy of Galerie Templon, Paris. Photo: Ugo Carmeni