How Kehinde Wiley’s ‘Rumors of War’ Reframed Richmond’s Monument Avenue

Kehinde Wiley’s “Rumors of War” is a series about the traditions of equestrian portraiture in Western art. Its most prominent work is a 27-foot bronze statue depicting an African-American young man on horseback. His appearance departs sharply from the formal military imagery associated with traditional public monuments: he wears jeans ripped at the knees, Nike high-top sneakers and dreadlocks gathered into a ponytail.

The Richmond connection is central to the work’s meaning. Wiley created the statue in response to the monument honoring Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart in Richmond, as well as to comparable statues dedicated to senior Confederate Army officers. Those monuments represented a longstanding use of public sculpture to elevate military figures from the Confederacy. The source material notes that some similar monuments remained in the United States despite continuing demands for their removal.

By placing a contemporary Black figure at the center of an equestrian monument, Wiley’s project examines who has traditionally been presented as worthy of grandeur, permanence and public recognition. The work does not simply reproduce the format of a heroic statue; it redirects that format toward a subject whose clothing and styling signal a different cultural and historical reference point from the European and military conventions often associated with the genre.

The project first received broad public attention in September 2019, when Wiley unveiled the work in New York City’s Times Square. The presentation took place among the district’s electronic billboards and included support from the Malcolm X Shabazz High School band of Newark, New Jersey. Times Square Arts, Sean Kelly Gallery and UAP collaborated on the project.

Afterward, “Rumors of War” was installed in Richmond. The source describes that installation as a turning point in the city’s monument landscape: all of the statues of Confederate military leaders were subsequently removed from Monument Avenue, where they had stood since the first decade of the 20th century.

For Richmond, the sculpture functions as both an artwork and a response to the civic space around it. Its scale and familiar equestrian form connect it to the city’s former memorial tradition, while its subject challenges the assumptions behind that tradition. “Rumors of War” therefore offers a way to consider public monuments not as fixed features of the landscape, but as choices that reflect changing ideas about history, power and belonging.

Source and reuse information This automatically generated backgrounder adapts text from “Rumors of War” on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumors_of_War The adapted text is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. The source article’s linked references are provided below where available. This story has not been independently reviewed or fact-checked.

Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/arts/design/kehinde-wiley-times-square-statue.html - https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/kehinde-wiley-unveils-rumors-war-statue-times-square - https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2019/9/30/lldqbtjzfuza8etm0cl89rtaj62w2l - https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-rumors-of-war-statue-times-square-20190927-ulmkuh6fkvcnteqzdfymb6bytq-story.html - https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/with-a-brass-band-blaring-artist-kehinde-wiley-goes-off-to-war-with-confederate-statues/2019/09/27/178bbb04-e16c-11e9-be96-6adb81821e90_story.html - https://www.npr.org/2019/12/10/786835334/kehinde-wileys-rumors-of-war-sculpture-unveiled-in-richmond Image rights Photograph description: Please note that these photos are for personal use only. If posting to social media or sharing the photos, the following byline must be used: Official Photo by Kaitlyn DeHarde, Office of Governor Glenn Youngkin. If you share them with friends or family, make sure to include the disclaimer below: These photographs are provided by The Office of Governor Glenn Youngkin as a courtesy and may be printe Creator: Kaitlyn DeHarde, Virginia Office of the Governor. License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALGBTQ%2B_Advisory_Board%2C_Log_Cabin_Republicans_and_Community_Reception%2C_Richmond_(cropped).jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.