We love Kanye West in the Marvelous World because due to his self centered and self absorbed attitude he is the near epitome of eNoli. Mr. West is back with a brand new “video portrait” instead of a video for his single “Power,” which has been bubbling on the airwaves and internet for the past couple of months. He decided to go in a very creative direction and hired famed multi-media artist Marco Brambilla to put a special visual spin on this project that premiered after last night’s Jersey Shore. Check it out…
Here are clips from a New Yorker Magazine where the director talks about the origin of the video.
So what exactly is the piece?
Well, it’s a video portrait of Kanye. It starts with a very tight shot introducing him that’s kind of a reinvention of a neoclassical painting. It pulls back from the shot, without any cuts, and we reveal the video canvas, populated by all these characters who are depicted in various stages of undress and decadence. The iconography comes from Roman iconography, Renaissance iconography, and it connects to the sexuality of the music as well. As we reveal the setting for it, there’s a feeling of a moment of transition for him. A fall from grace, if you will. It visualizes power, and him as the icon as power, and then at the end of the piece it challenges the power that I set up at the beginning. It’s an elliptical piece of storytelling.
How did you guys end up using that kind of imagery?
He approached me via my gallery and he wanted to do something that wasn’t a music video. He wanted a video work that would accompany the music. I said, “That’s great, because I don’t do music videos.” I wanted to give it an epic feeling. The song feels very personal, but the orchestration and the production of the track is epic and I wanted to give it something hypersensational and exaggerated.
Kanye had laid low after the Taylor Swift incident, and I think people expected him to come back a bit humbled. Were you surprised that he wanted to do something this over-the-top?
That’s exactly what I like about his music. It’s the anti–Tiger Woods moment, you know? This piece is really about that. The new album is very personal, too, and the various tracks on the album suggest things that have happened to him. This is the most epic track. It was a really great opportunity to show a moment of defiance and a moment of self-awareness. It’s that combination that he has as an artist that’s very peculiar.