Kehinde Wiley‘s first name rhymes with windy.
Alec Soth‘s second name rhymes with both.
Last week they were both in town to talk about their art work and to listen to their names mangled over and over.
When PAFA Curator Julien Robson introduced Wiley, he bemoaned his habit of turning the final long e of Kehinde into a Germanic ending. Habits being what they are, he then rhymed Kehinde with Linda throughout the intro. Wiley didn’t seem perturbed.
Soth on the other hand is clearly perturbed by the mispronunciation of his name. As people walked into the talk at Penn, they were greeted by Soth’s first slide– “rhymes with both”–big old white letters on a black background. Ahem. And don’t you forget it. Director of Graduate Photography Gabe Martinez quickly forgot. He began with Soth a la both, but then quickly fell into Soth a la goth. Like I said, habits die hard. Fortunately Soth was polite and didn’t comment.
But really, what can you expect from a town that pronounces Schuylkill as Skookill, and the Acme as the Ack-a-me?
