My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Kanye West) – George Condo Elias Daryani Internal runner-up of National ARTiculation competition Twisted Fantasy’ perfectly. Before the late 1930s, record covers had no visual appeal – they only included the name of the record company. Nevertheless, by the 1970s, album covers began to use concept art and symbolism to exhibit greater emotion, in the hopes of generating a more profound attachment to the album. An early example of this is Led Zeppelin’s 1973 album ‘Houses Of The Holy’, designed by the firm Hipgnosis. The cover was able to mix sex, abstract expression and a vibrant colour palette to garner attention for the album and to represent the band’s music to wondrous and rattling effect. This medley of sex and surrealism is similar to Condo’s main cover art for ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’. The vibrant oil painting of an armless sphinx with wings and a polka-dotted tail straddling West is as fantastical as it is disturbing.
After Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMA awards, the public were outraged and it was seen as career suicide for West. Mentally struggling, he went on a self-imposed exile to Oahu, Hawaii, in what seemed to be his decline. However, he had other plans in mind and instead dedicated his time in Hawaii to creating his magnum opus – ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’. In West’s mind, this album was make or break and everything had to go into it: all insecurities, all emotions, all bravado. We can link this idea of having no filter to the design of the album cover. George Condo is an American artist 24
known for his unique and figurative paintings, often featuring fragmented portraits and belligerent imagery. He blends aesthetics that reflect Pablo Picasso with contemporary American culture, with him claiming: “I describe what I do as psychological cubism”. The idea of aggression and maximalist production mixed with American pop culture, mirrors ‘My Beautiful Dark
‘One of West and Condo’s major artistic influences is Pablo Picasso’
One of West and Condo’s major artistic influences is Pablo Picasso, whose “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” is considered momentous because of how it disrupted the contemporary art scene during the early 20th century. It too is an oil painting, which features five female prostitutes in a brothel lying in a bed looking out towards an observer. Picasso forces us to stare at these prostitutes who seem to look deeply disturbed, directly engaging us and making it almost impossible to look away from the naked, entangled women. Similarities can be drawn with ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’, as Condo paints both West and the armless woman as looking directly at the viewer whilst they are having sex; disconcerting the onlooker and involving them with the piece and all its elements. Per contra, Condo is less interested in the way we look at a
