Kanye West once labelled the celebrated visual artist Matthew Barney as “Jesus”
Kanye West is arguably the most controversial artist on the planet right now, even surpassing the likes of Kid Rock and Ted Nugent. Although the iconic rapper has been known for his colourful character and outlandish actions for years, recently, during his Yeezy fashion show in Paris, the rapper went beyond the pale, changing his position from caricature to someone who needs to be called out.
West rightly caused an uproar when he appeared in a ‘White Lives Matter’ T-shirt, which was instantly decried as a crass negation of the class struggle that Black people, and in particular, Black Americans, face. The slogan has been adopted by the far-right and denies the existence of racism towards the Black community. Unsurprisingly, the ever-confident West maintained his position by writing on Instagram: “Here’s my latest response when people ask me why I made a tee that says white lives matter… THEY DO.”
While it is clear that West has just reached a new level of incomprehensible, this has been happening for a long time now, with spectators and commentators lapping it up. In 2016, he made one of his most extraordinary bold claims, stating that one of the most lauded contemporary artists was “Jesus”.
Reflecting his segue into the character he is today, elsewhere that year, West also claimed that his cryptic tweets are “a form of contemporary art only compromised by people trying to tell me what to tweet and what not to tweet”. Detailing further, the rapper also stated: “No one can ask me or try to tell me what to Instagram. It’s my art.”
That year, West started making waves as an artist outside of music, evidenced by the provocative music video for the track ‘Famous’ from The Life of Pablo. Blending his increasingly experimental music with the art world, West took inspiration from Vincent Desiderio’s Sleep, the 24-foot painting of people in the nude on a bed, which was itself influenced by 19th-century erotica.
Memorably, the clip was a bold re-imagining of Desiderio’s painting, and it featured a wide array of prominent figures he’d encountered in public. These were: Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Anna Wintour, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Amber Rose, Chris Brown, Caitlyn Jenner and even convicted sex offender Bill Cosby.
For the ‘Famous’ video, West also took great inspiration from the work of celebrated visual artist Matthew Barney. He is famous for using living sculptures in pieces such as The Cremaster Cycle. Barney is so renowned that he was the first recipient of the now-defunct Hugo Boss prize, which allowed him to bring his work to new levels and the masses.
Before making the music video, West had been a longtime fan of Barney’s and even attended the premiere of his River of Fundament in 2014. Speaking to Vanity Fair in 2016, West pronounced his love for the artist, saying: “Matthew Barney is my Jesus.”
