Kehinde Wiley built an empire out of painting young Black men into art history.
Can it survive accusations of sexual assault?
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Ingram declined the drink.
He just wasnt doing anything for me.
Everybodys attention was on him in the room, he says.
As the party wound down, the man cut through the crowd to again offer Ingram a drink.
I was like,Oh, I want to get to know him.
Ingrams and Wileys accounts of what happened next diverge dramatically.
Ingram remembers the apartment was very artistic and extravagant but also absolutely trashed and chaotic.
Wiley splits his time among New York, Dakar, and Lagos.
He was generous, Ingram says, with both his money and his time.
Sometimes he offered Ingram cash for no reason.
He says Wiley made promises about introducing me to people, growing my nonprofit.
But, according to Ingram, Wiley could also be controlling.
He demeaned me, he says.
He would choose my clothes.
He would tell me at a party when I could talk, when I couldnt talk.
Once, Ingram says, Wiley FaceTimed with a young man in Senegal in front of Ingram.
Wiley denies any of that happened.
He also denies the escalation Ingram says soon followed.
(Wiley also denies that he sought an NDA.)
He took it fine, Ingram says of the split.
I think I was just a dime a dozen to him.
In a second post two months later, he alleged that his abuser was Kehinde Wiley.
Ingram wrote that there were moments of extreme violence.
Along with severe emotional manipulation throughout the relationship.
The next day, Wiley posted a response, saying that he and Awuah-Darko had a one time encounter.
So far, none of the accusers has brought suit against Wiley.
Wiley has studios inBeijing, Dakar, Brooklyn, and Lagos where assistants help create his work.
Meanwhile, his market comes off as stalling.
That upward trajectory has certainly been chopped off for now, says art adviser Todd Levin of Wileys prices.
Its unclear how long Wileys career might withstand gridlock.
The issue will always be an asterisk next to his name until its dealt with.
Wiley seems to be in an irritable mood.
After the allegations came out earlier in the summer, three museums had scrapped exhibitions of his work.
Hell yeah, Wiley says.
One of the portraits slated for the Joslyn Art Museum now sat on its side in the studio.
It shows a blue-haired young woman giving side-eye.
In this case, it is a high-contrast floral design.
Wiley, wearing similarly busy patchwork jeans, continues his polite but half-hearted tour.
The pictures are headed to London for a show that has not been canceled, at Stephen Friedman Gallery.
These paintings are about quietude instead of the grand, chest-beating bravado of much of his work.
Wiley started developing this signature bombast while earning his M.F.A.
Currin is allowed to do that because it is Currins history.
I never wanted to be white but that indisputable access to the history of Western painting becomes sickly desirable.
Wiley, coffee in hand, rubs his eyes as we take a seat on the couch.
When I ask how hes doing, he doesnt hesitate.
Its been a nightmare.
Its been an absolute nightmare, he tells me.
Im recovering from this traumatic exploding of my world that was so, so obviously calculated.
Wileys anger is particularly focused on Awuah-Darko, whom he calls the ringleader to this entire circus.
The younger artist posts heavily produced and intensely confessional videos and photos on Instagram.
To Wiley, his allegations are part of an elaborate social-media performance.
Awuah-Darko followed the teaser with Episode Two: The Naming, as Wiley puts it.
Its just so vulgar and absurd.
From the first moment that this happened, Ive had to make some adjustments, he says.
You know, do I want my public to be viewing my work through the rubric of this situation?
Or do I want my work to be seen in its best light?
And to that extent, I wanted to in many ways reconsider doing shows.
Theres tons and tons of interest in my work.
People know this is bullshit, he says.
The demand for my work is robust.
Nonetheless, he raises a valid concern.
Dawson acknowledges today that she wasnt aware of any actual wrongdoing on Wileys part when she wrote it.
It was simply my reaction to the work.
I could never have anticipated, prophesied, or foreshadowed any recent allegations, she says.
His contempt for the review, and for being asked about it, is palpable.
It was roundly criticized and presumed to be blatantly homophobic.
Yeah what about it?
Is there a loving embrace in the work, or is there something sinister in the work?
you might trust your heart on that.
Wileys strategy for dealing with the allegations has been to publicly fight back.
Wiley argues that he has had no choice but to bring in professionals to help him.
Someone makes these false statements about you and youre just expected to live with it?
In June, he posted screenshots on Instagram to clear up the baseless and defamatory claims against him.
The screenshots show that Awuah-Darko called Wiley twice at 4 a.m. that evening before going to Wileys hotel room.
A second assault that was much more severe and violent allegedly then took place.
He wrote on Instagram, It almost destroyed me.
Wiley characterizes it as a flirtatious night, a little, you know, queer hookup situation.
When Sakyiamah had still allegedly received no payments by June, he sued.
I find the timing of this baseless lawsuit by a former resident peculiar and disappointing, Awuah-Darko writes.
I am presently engaged in the process of filing a counterclaim in Ghana to clear this.
In August, Wiley gave an interview toThe Wall Street Journal,whose affluent readership includes many art collectors.
He admitted that he was not the perfect sexual assault victim but reiterated, I was raped.
(He has been pictured with Italian greyhounds, a smaller breed, in those years).
When I ask Wiley how he feels about theJournalstory, he says he was relieved after reading it.
Yet the matter is clearly still consuming him emotionally.
Wiley cant speak for long about any subject without returning to his outrage over the accusations.
Well, therapyspeak is not enough to destroy someones life.
He walks me through it.
Look at their social media, he says, now referring to Ingram and Armistead.
Theyre both doing ads for grocery money, rent money.
What do you expect when you have such a vulnerable, high-profile person in the world?
Black lives matter is my life.
(Ingram has since hosted online fundraisers for the Lupus Foundation and for medical aid to Gaza.)
According to Wiley, he doesnt really know Ingram at all.
It was a one-night stand, Wiley says.
Theres no Signal, theres no Mickalene party.
Theres no crystal meth, theres no coke.
Sorry, all of that is complete fiction.
(Mickalene Thomas did not respond to a request for comment.)
Wiley pulls out his phone to show me the text history between him and Ingram.
If Ingram had ever responded to Wileys screenshots, it wasnt via text message.
A few days later, Ingram wrote Wiley at 8:24 p.m., saying, Hey Im ready handsome.
If Wiley had ever responded, it also wasnt via text message.
That exchange seemed to contradict Wileys claims that they had met only once.
The exchange also seems to contradict Wileys claim that the whole relationship could be seen in these dozen texts.
he asks at one point.
It takes a lot of bending over backward and folding yourself into a pretzel to understand these arguments.
The picture becomes even more complicated among gay men.
Ingram says it took him years to process what had happened to him.
In his mind, Wiley was a brilliant eccentric whose lifestyle seemed somehow exempt from social norms.
Perhaps his behavior was even considered typical among people of his stature.
Nobodys story not Ingrams, not Awuah-Darkos, not Wileys looks completely convincing from the outside.
Now, Wiley, who is self-made, has everything to lose.
He grew up in a well-educated working-class family in South Central Los Angeles.
Even as a teenager, Wiley was a gifted promoter.
I understood very early about the social component to art, he toldThe New Yorker.
It was immediately clear that Wiley was Deitchs kind of artist.
It was never about just hanging up six paintings or ten paintings, he says of Wileys shows.
It was creating a world.
By this I mean that he creates history as much as tells it.
From there, his career skyrocketed.
Fuck the 15 minutes, Wiley once said.
Im going to give you a painting, and Ill make you live forever.
Years later, he heard from friends that theyd seen a painting of him by Wiley.
I havent seen it in any galleries myself, he says.
But its just amazing to know that its possible that that painting probably has impacted someone somewhere.
In 2019, he cast himself in the role of Paul Gauguin by visiting Tahiti to make portraits.
The ways we see Black and brown bodies from the Pacific are shot through his sense of desire.
But how do you change the narrative?
How do you change the way of looking?
He decided to paint the islands third gender mahu people and have them pick their own poses.
But its not always clear that Wiley is shifting the dominant gaze as much as he may think.
And not everybody he paints is a nobody.
Wiley was supposed to be in control of this kingdom.
He now laments the arrival of Warhols future, where everyone can be famous for 15 minutes.
Every individual has that power in their palm with devices.
I dont know how he did it, but he predicted it.
Sean Kelly, Wileys gallery in New York, has never responded to the allegations.
But two of Wileys other galleries have pushed back against that idea.
It is crucial that any claims are addressed through proper legal channels, reads a statement from Templon.
Equally, we should rush neither to the judgment of alleged perpetrators, nor to their defense.
There is an appropriate forum for each to be heard.
What that forum might be is unclear.
A lawsuit seems unlikely.
Awuah-Darko and Lloyd Richards live in Europe, and the statute of limitations has run out in Armisteads case.
Friedman Gallerys decision to show Wileys work at this moment has been met with some surprise.
Its so crazy to me, says Heather Flow.
I guess theyre just pretending like it doesnt matter.
Who in their right mind would try and resell that painting right now?
He probably needs to keep his head down and do his work, says the art adviser Victoria Burns.
Museum directors, however, have been much quicker to cancel Wiley.
There was some pushback against the museum cancellations.
A suit of armor stands against a wall at the entrance to Wileys studio.
On the one hand, armor, as Wiley sees it, is a metaphor for portrait painting itself.
I think the narrative always with portraiture has to do with armor, he once told Hyperallergic.
Something [at] once that keeps something out and holds something in.
An early example of Wiley incorporating armor in his work was his 2009 portrait of Michael Jackson.
I was like, Well, normally no because I usually paint just randos, he tells me.
Today, Wiley says hes become obsessed with armor and plans to use it more in his upcoming work.
Its Wileys partner, the 27-year-old Nigerian model Kenneth Okorie.
Wiley says the crisis has brought the couple closer together.
Were on the phone every day.
But the timing of the allegations couldnt be more monstrous.
Wiley says he was literally on the phone with my fertility doctor His voice starts to quaver.
He was in the process of having a baby around the time the news broke.
Ive had my life going prior to this nuclear bomb dropping on it.
Im the kind of person who wants to give a child love.
The publicist interrupts to double-check Wiley is okay.
He wipes the tears away, excuses himself, and heads to another room.
When Wiley returns a few minutes later with a tissue, his indignation has come back, too.
Im the victim, he says, his voice still shaky.
When you say Believe victims, you should youre staring at one.
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