
 
 Photo: Courtesy of The Frick Pittsburgh
 

 Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Judith Slaying Holofernes”
Besides getting one of the several females to secure her location in the historic artwork globe, Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi endures as the visionary behind “Judith Slaying Holofernes,” just one of the most gruesomely putting paintings at any time displayed. Created in the early 1600s, the Previous Testament story depicts the beheading of an Assyrian general, in all its gory element, by a Jewish widow, an act that would assistance help save her fellow Israelites. The function is now regarded by quite a few gurus as a touchstone of feminist art.
The Frick Pittsburgh will provide the portray into the contemporary age by aligning it with a similarly titled get the job done by a celebrated Black American contemporary artist. 



SLAY: Artemisia Gentileschi & Kehinde Wiley will pair “Judith Slaying Holofernes” with a do the job by Wiley, a painter greatest acknowledged for his hyper-reasonable portraits of Black gentlemen and females, together with his 2018 portrait of former President Barack Obama. A push launch describes the clearly show — on view in The Frick Art Museum from Sat., April 16 via July 10 — as boosting “critical questions of identity, electric power, inequality, oppression, and what constitutes self-protection in an unjust war.” 




Compared with Gentileschi’s portray, Wiley’s “Judith Slaying Holofernes,” which was painted in 2012, demonstrates a Black female in a flowing robe greedy the severed head of Holofernes, all of which is established in opposition to just one of the painter’s signature floral backgrounds.



“These two artists, their journeys, and their stories are vastly various. And however there is so much in common in their experiences,” claims Pittsburgh-based art historian Kilolo Luckett, who coordinated the exhibit with the Frick’s chief curator Dawn R. Brean. “We are programmed to seem at differences in an unhealthy way the exhibition is an option to think otherwise — and to recover and expand collectively.” 




 
 
 Photograph: Courtesy of The Frick Pittsburgh
 

 Kehinde Wiley’s “Judith Slaying Holofernes”
The show was co-arranged by the Museo e Serious Bosco di Capodimonte, the North Carolina Museum of Artwork, and The Museum Box. Gentileschi’s portray was borrowed from Museo e Genuine Bosco di Capodimonte, while Wiley’s operate was borrowed from the North Carolina Museum of Artwork.
“We are very grateful for the opportunity to showcase these two terribly strong masterworks in a hardly ever-just before-found pairing,” states Dr. Elizabeth E. Barker, government director of The Frick Pittsburgh. “Great is effective of art, like these two paintings, take us outside the house of ourselves and have the electrical power to change the way we see the earth.”




In addition to being on screen, the museum will also host a amount of events developed to place the paintings and their artists in a historic and social context. These contain a dialogue led by Hebrew Bible scholar Caryn Tambler-Rosenau, a screening of the 2014 film, Kehinde Wiley: An Overall economy of Grace, and a chat with Gina Siciliano, author of the graphic novel I Know What I Am: The Life of Artemisia Gentileschi.



“When we talk about a function of art with other folks, the working experience can be even richer and a lot more meaningful,” claims Barker. “This is one particular purpose why museums are playing an more and more critical job in fostering discourse and can even provide as agents of social change.”
SLAY: Artemisia Gentileschi & Kehinde Wiley. Sat., April 16-July 10. The Frick Art Museum. 7227 Reynolds St., Issue Breeze. Free. Timed tickets demanded. thefrickpittsburgh.org/exhibitions
