Canceling Kanye

I always intend for my art to send messages and to stand for something: messages of beauty, celebration, joy, remembrance, nostalgia (not because today is bad but because it is made so much richer by remembering yesterday), and self-worth.

But I never seek to send political messages through my art. To me, politics is about conflict, and art is about harmony. Art inspires while politics deflates. Messages about politics are thus better left to the candidates, the tv talking heads, and the pundits.

But in the case of my painting “Cancelling Kanye” – my 6 foot by 5 foot Yeezy sneaker (the leading sneaker in the Adidas line that was created and sponsored by Kanye West) is marked with a cross-hatched bold red “CANCELLED” notice across the picture –I did not start out in search of sending a political message; rather the political message crashed into my art.

Like the Air Jordans and the Chuck Taylors, the Yeezys had certainly become iconic – a source of delight, of pursuit, of frenzy. Their status – as is true of the status of all iconic objects – was a product not of the attributes of the product (the sneaker itself), but of the reaction of the public. At first, sneakerheads had to have Yeezys, and soon everyone wanted a pair.

The Yeezys deserved and were ideally suited for a wall-size showing bursting in color.

But then Kanye revealed his dark side, filled with hate for so many—blacks, Jews, and much of the rest of mankind. He revealed as well his belief that the rest of us were so dependent on his success, that he could not face the consequences.

To paint Yeezy would have been to glorify West, his hatred, and his arrogance. So my instinct was simply to ignore the sneaker. Hatred would have no place in our collection.

But I realized that, by ignoring the Yeezy, I would be part of the problem. I was not stretching to use my art for political commentary. Rather, my art is dedicated in part to the glorification of the beauty of the iconic sneaker.

When it came to the Yeezy and thus to Kanye, I was already in the conversation. I could not ignore the Yeezy; indeed I had to Cancel the Yeezy. And as I realized it, then the painting with the massive Yeezy and the classic red cross-hatched “Cancelled” sign came clearly into my mind and then onto the canvas.

And though art often imitates life, life also imitates art. With the painting having “Cancelled” the Yeezy, Adidas a week later canceled production of the sneaker. The icon will always exist, but its cancellation in art and in commerce should always send the message that hate has no home here.