{"id":6772,"date":"2016-06-27T13:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T13:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=6772"},"modified":"2016-06-27T13:00:04","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T13:00:04","slug":"the-painting-behind-the-new-kanye-west-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/the-painting-behind-the-new-kanye-west-video\/","title":{"rendered":"The Painting Behind The New Kanye West Video"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kanyewest.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kanye West<\/a> released a new video on Friday night. As one might expect, it is extravagant, controversial and inspired. Inspired by a work of art, that is. The visual elements in the <a href=\"https:\/\/vid.me\/6mTU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cFamous\u201d<\/a> video clearly reference figurative artist Vincent Desiderio\u2019s \u201cSleep\u201d painting. The original depicts a line of nude individuals lying on a messy bed. In West\u2019s version, the people are wax figures of nude celebrities, from Taylor Swift to Donald Trump and George W. Bush to Amber Rose.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The NSFW\u00a0video feels voyeuristic, but so does Desiderio\u2019s realistic large-scale (we\u2019re talking \u201ceight-foot-high and 24-foot-long\u201d large-scale) painting. The New York-based artist\u2019s intriguing works are thematically complex and are often paired with intimate, absurd scenes that force the viewer to confront emotion-laden ideas.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear whether Desiderio (or anyone else depicted in the video, for that matter) were previously aware of the project, but we venture to say that the video isn\u2019t just inspired by the painting but is instead a re-creation of it. The similarities are undeniable, as the figures are even each positioned almost identically:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kanye took Vincent Desiderio&#8217;s &#8220;Sleep&#8221; &amp; brought it to life with a modern twist.. if that isn&#8217;t genius idk what is. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bSDddfQFNo\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/bSDddfQFNo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 RAY MU\u00d1OZ (@raymunoz94) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/raymunoz94\/status\/746551311424851968\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">June 25, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As with anything West does, the Internet went into a frenzy after the \u201cFamous\u201d launch, and some people were quick to point out the Desiderio reference. At the LA premiere, West, who says the video is \u201ca comment on fame,\u201d reportedly did name Desiderio as an inspiration. So it is also unclear whether a lawsuit is on its way \u2013 or several. (While we\u2019ve heard from George W. Bush, there\u2019s still no word from Taylor Swift, who has a particularly tumultuous relationship with the rapper). Still, Kanye doesn\u2019t seem to mind \u2013 a now-deleted tweet on Saturday stated: \u201cCan someone sue me already. I\u2019ll wait.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Desiderio has yet to comment. As for whether he was involved or will sue, he did have this to say, in 2012*, about painters being inspired by one another\u2019s work. So perhaps West will go unscathed on this one after all:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, what painters do when they work from the work of other painters is they allegorize the method. They take things that are present in the technical narrative of painters that precede them, and they imbue them with an anthropomorphic presence or give it a name or reissue it in a different way, but in doing so they treat that quality or character or set of relationships in a different way\u2026 I am interested in method \u2013 in the procedures of painters being reinvestigated, re-understood, even misread, in using them as touchstones for our own progress, process and the process of painting to come.<\/em><em>\u201d &#8211;Vincent Desiderio<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>*\u201cThe Art of Sensibility,\u201d Out of Order Magazine, April 2012<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kanye West released a new video on Friday night<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}