Africa shines through Kehinde Wiley

BEIJING—In 2008, the world focused on this Chinese capital as the Beijing Olympic Games turned out to be a pivotal part of sports history. China opened its doors to the world and gathered the best athletes from over 200 countries in one giant state-of-the-art Bird’s Nest Sports Stadium.

The historic event allowed the world to discover more about the country as not just a land of record-breaking athletes but also an ideal location for the world’s largest sporting event.

I’m here to witness Puma’s Spring Summer 2010 African Lifestyle Collection, plus Kehinde Wiley’s Legends of Unity Art Exhibition.

The exhibit comes from a seven-country tour, which started in Berlin in January 2010 and started traveling last February to other key cities of Paris, London, New York, and now Beijing.

Its next stop will be Milan followed by South Africa as its last frontier in time for the World Cup in June.

Puma has enjoyed a long-standing partnership with African football and sponsors 12 African teams, four of which were qualified to the World Cup.

To herald the start of the World Cup in South Africa, Puma presented a special collaboration with young urban artist, Kehinde Wiley.

Best known for contemporary African-American portraits with unique graphic and colorful wallpaper-like backgrounds, Puma commissioned Wiley to create four original portraits using three African football stars as his models: Samuel Eto’O of Cameroon, John Mensah of Ghana, and Emmanuel Eboué of Ivory Coast.

Roots

Kehinde studied painting and art history at the prestigious Yale University School of Art in Connecticut.

Born in Los Angeles and currently based in New York, he traces his roots and tells me his mother is African-American and his father is Nigerian. “I have traveled around West Africa. I went from Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and to Cameroon. Each one is a fantastic place,” Wiley quips with a smile.

He’s kept an art studio in Beijing for the last five years. It is meant to be a place where he can sort of disappear and get away from the busy life of NYC.

Kehinde is also part of the growing community of American and European artists in the Chinese capital.

“Beijing for so long has been the capital of art in China, and within the last few years it has become a huge player in the world of arts. As an artist who is really curious about the world, I really want to be here and engage not only in the culture but also immerse in the soul of the place,” he says.

The Journey To Africa

An integral part of this Puma collaboration project is to create a pleasant image for Africa. Kehinde has traveled around West Africa along with Puma ambassadors Eto’O, Mensah and Eboué, to learn more about the rich culture and color that unites Africa.

Each of them spent some time with Kehinde as he painted their individual portraits, wearing their own national team uniforms kits.

The portrait was inspired by a pendant that Kehinde scored while touring the continent. As for the backgrounds, Kehinde braved underground markets and street stalls of Africa to search for perfect colors and textures. He carefully observed the laborious traditional process of creating and dying of African fabric.

“I had a great experience of witnessing how the African fabric is manufactured and fabricated—from dying to pounding them out, until a smooth surface is created,” he said.

In the “Unity Portrait,” the players wear the Puma Unity Kit.

A limited-edition football jersey is registered as the third uniform kit of all Puma-sponsored African teams for the World Cup 2010.

The brown pigment on the kit is a customized Pantone color that Puma created by mixing actual soil samples from four different African countries—Ghana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Mozambique. Another special feature of the portrait is the brown-blue color gradient, which represents the progression of soil to sky in Africa.

For Kehinde, designing a line of clothes and shoes was the most challenging part of the Puma Project.

Kehinde lent some of his signature African patterns to Puma’s Spring Summer 2010 African Lifestyle—a collection comprised of apparel, footwear and accessories; while Puma chose seven graphic patterns from Kehinde’s existing works and incorporated them to Puma’s classic pieces.

“This is the first time we will see the World Cup in Africa. It is a great opportunity to make Africa shine in a one clothing line,” he said.

Puma’s Spring Summer 2010 African Lifestyle Collection will be available this April at Puma stores on Boni High Street, Festival Supermall Alabang, Glorietta 4, Trinoma, Ayala Center Cebu, and Limketkai Mall Cagayan de Oro.