HAVANA EXHIBITION

Havana, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York

Featuring 14 paintings and a three-channel film, HAVANA is informed by Wiley’s focus on the evolution of Black culture globally. Inspired by two visits Wiley made to Cuba, this new body of work explores the phenomenon of the carnivalesque in Western culture. Referencing artists as diverse as Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Calder, and Western European depictions of the carnivalesque, the circus, and the power of street performance and dance, HAVANA focuses on the circus as a site of disruption for the rational mind and circus performers who embrace a dynamic and vibrant way of living and being in the world.