Why the Trump Administration Is Purging ‘Woke’ Art From U.S. Embassies

For “Young Artists After Siamesas 1960,” Wiley collaborated with students from the Facultad de Artes and the Altos de Chavon School of Design, both prominent art schools in the Dominican Republic. The subjects in the painting were modeled by four local art students. The work drew inspiration from two Dominican art works, Celeste Woss y Gil’s 1940 painting “Desnudo Feminine” and Gilberto Hernández Ortega’s 1960 work “Siamesas.”

The painting was part of the embassy’s permanent exhibition, assembled through the State Department’s Art in Embassies program. Established in 1963, the program is aimed at fostering cross-cultural dialogue and diplomacy through art. In 2015, the State Department awarded Wiley its Medal of Arts in recognition of his contributions to the program.

But in recent years, Wiley faced criticism from conservative commentators over his 2012 painting “Judith and Holofernes.” The painting portrays a Black woman holding the severed head of a white woman, which Wiley later described as a play on the “kill whitey thing.” The work, currently on view at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, reimagines a 17th century painting by Giovanni Baglione that depicts the biblical story of Judith beheading an invading general to save her town.