Kehinde Wiley responds to woman’s lawsuit alleging sexual assault

The artist Kehinde Wiley has been sued in New York by a lady who claims that he sexually assaulted her at a restaurant in 2007. This follows related allegations made towards Wiley final yr by 4 completely different males, all of which had been denied by the artist who could also be finest identified for portray President Barack Obama’s Smithsonian portrait.

In February, an artist named Ogechi Chieke filed the lawsuit towards Wiley. In keeping with Chieke, she met Wiley for the primary time at a 2007 gallery opening for a bunch present by which Chieke’s work was included. She was “flattered that he was involved in her work,” in keeping with the lawsuit. Whereas ready for a desk for dinner after the gallery opening, Chieke alleges that Wiley pressed himself towards her, grabbed her bottom with each palms and pulled her nearer to him. It was at that time that Wiley “forcibly grabbed her vagina—inflicting her extreme ache”, the lawsuit claims. Wiley allegedly advised Chieke that he “would lick that pussy so clear”. Chieke was so upset that she left earlier than dinner, in keeping with the lawsuit, and finally left New York and the artwork world altogether.

“Because of Wiley’s violent sexual assaults, Ms. Chieke has suffered from extreme psychological and emotional misery,” the lawsuit states.

The go well with was filed in New York below town’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Safety Regulation, which allowed plaintiffs a two-year window to provoke civil lawsuits in instances that might in any other case have lapsed commonplace statutes of limitations. The lawsuit was first reported on by The Unbiased.

“There is no such thing as a fact to Ms. Chieke’s allegations. I’ve by no means met her, nor do I do know her,” Wiley mentioned in a press release to The Artwork Newspaper, calling the lawsuit a “blatant money-grab”.

“It’s hardly a coincidence that this newest rip-off is going on in the identical 12-month interval the place others tried to shake me down,” Wiley added.

Whereas Wiley was accused of sexual assault by 4 others final yr, that is the primary time an accusation has been made towards the artist in courtroom. In Might 2024, the British Ghanaian artist Joseph Awuah-Darko was the primary to return ahead on social media with allegations of sexual misconduct, saying that Wiley groped him at a dinner in Ghana. Later that night time, Awuah-Darko says {that a} sexual encounter between the 2 started consensually however shifted into Wiley assaulting him. Wiley denies the allegations, claiming their contact was a “consensual sexual encounter that was under no circumstances coercive or abusive”.

A couple of months later, the historian Terrell Armistead accused Wiley of sexually assaulting him after assembly at a bar in 2010. Armistead says he went to Wiley’s house and declined intercourse however woke as much as Wiley performing a sexual act on him with out his consent. Wiley denies ever assembly Armistead.

A fourth accuser, the activist Derrick Ingram (who helped organise New York’s Black Lives Matter marches), claimed Wiley sexually assaulted him throughout a months-long relationship. Wiley says their contact was restricted to a single consensual encounter.

Three US museums postponed or cancelled solo exhibits devoted to Wiley after information of the allegations broke: the Pérez Artwork Museum Miami, Minneapolis Museum of Artwork and Joslyn Artwork Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.