Kehinde Wiley, Trump's Arch, and Art's Place in the Political Arena

When Kehinde Wiley’s Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps was removed from the walls of London’s National Portrait Gallery in the simmering aftermath of the UK state visit of then-president Donald Trump in 2019, the act carried consequences beyond curatorial decisions. Wiley’s painting, at once a reclamation and reimagination of Jacques-Louis David’s propagandistic 1801 portrait of Napoleon, inserts a young Black man in contemporary streetwear atop the stallion, displacing empire with vitality, hegemony with revision.

This decision, reportedly prompted by last-minute programming shifts to accommodate diplomatic sensitivities, drew sharp criticism from artists and commentators alike. “The erasure of this work in such a politically charged moment underscores precisely why it exists in the first place,” noted Simon Baker, director of Maison Européenne de la Photographie and a frequent chronicler of political iconography in art.

Wiley, speaking at a subsequent panel hosted by the Studio Museum in Harlem, described his work as "a visual rabble-rouser," constructed to challenge power structures while asserting the dignity of historically marginalised figures. He did not mince words on the implications of the painting’s removal: “If you can’t look at this, then what does that say about the politics you’re trying to guard so carefully?”

The tension between Wiley’s practice and the state machinery in this instance illuminates why contemporary art continues to find itself in fraught dialogues with political power. Artists like Wiley do not merely inhabit the gallery space; their works interrogate it, demanding uncomfortable, at times incendiary, conversations about race, visibility, and authority. The decision to stow Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps—whether for optics or appeasement—demonstrates how political climates often guide what is deemed palatable for public consumption.

Wiley’s oeuvre, spanning painting, sculpture, and stained glass, has consistently addressed systemic exclusions. His subjects, drawn from everyday encounters, are bathed in the grandeur of canonical European portraiture, their presence both a tribute and a disruption. His 2018 commission for the official presidential portrait of Barack Obama, unveiled at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, marked a milestone, not merely for its formal innovations but for the narratives it elicited. That commission, steeped in layered symbology, stands in stark contrast to the erasure experienced in 2019, compelling a broader question: What functions does art perform when confronted by the machinery of state?

Trump’s state visit became a metonym for broader anxieties over representation and the sanitisation of political messaging. The same year, protests surrounding public monuments—ranging from Confederate statues in the United States to colonial structures across Europe—gained momentum. Wiley himself entered this fray with Rumors of War (2019), a monumental equestrian statue that was installed permanently at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The work, which reimagines Confederate iconography with a young African-American man atop the horse, brims with defiance. Its unveiling in Richmond, Virginia, the onetime capital of the Confederacy, was a deliberate response to how histories are built, preserved, and revised.

One cannot disentangle Wiley's removed painting from the broader discourse of monumental cannibalisation. As historian Alisha Gaines observed in an essay for Art Journal, Wiley’s interventions do more than reframe historical narratives—they erect counter-narratives, which exist precariously within institutions still wrestling with their own legacies. Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps, in this reading, is not simply a painting; it is an assertion of presence that institutions may struggle to fully absorb.

The mechanics of what constitutes resistance in art vary, particularly in contexts where institutions serve as both gatekeepers and amplifiers. Wiley’s temporary absence from the National Portrait Gallery foregrounds the fragility of institutional commitments to dissent and pluralism. As Baker pointed out, “Museums often perform progressiveness but remain beholden to political and donor pressures that can render those performances hollow.”

The National Portrait Gallery has not publicly addressed the specifics of the painting’s removal, and the vacuum of justification has left room for speculation. Was the act preemptively diplomatic, or reactionary censorship? The gallery’s silence mirrors a broader discomfort in articulating the role of cultural institutions amid turbulent political climates.

Yet artists like Wiley persist in demonstrating that art remains a necessary battleground. His work refuses neutrality, insisting instead on engagement. The removal of Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps did not dilute its resonance; it amplified it. As Wiley himself contended during the Harlem panel, “You take it down, and it becomes louder. That’s the irony of trying to erase something that’s rooted in truth.”

What unfolded in 2019 continues to reverberate, especially as museums and cultural spaces reassess their complicity in reinforcing or challenging power structures. Wiley’s practice reminds us that art’s power lies not merely in its presence but in its insistence to be seen on its own terms, uncontained by the whims of politics.