Kanye West: genius and recklessness?

Genius and recklessness? Perhaps, now, it would be more correct to reformulate this mutable binomial, dividing the words, already of them, by meaning, very distinct. On the one hand, the genius made of inexplicable emotionality but not for this without guidance and rules. On the other hand, the absence of rules: a real creative anarchy granted to a few, because like a rare monster it is difficult to tame. In this creative dictionary, for several years now, Kanye West, also called Ye, has been classified, who is the first to go to put away, praising himself to “ the man of tomorrow ” (a sort of guide for the lost humanity) under the verb of the future.

But is this really the case? Are we really capable of entrusting our aesthetic and ethical judgment to such a contradictory figure? The answer is much more articulated than a firm yes and a firm no, because digging backwards we must remember that it was his own public who bestowed it with honors and burdens and that now seems to demand the crown back.

It was 2008, when during the Paris show season, a young group of ” black lives ” silently protested outside the big names in fashion because there were few if not non-existent designers in ” unclear ” skin. Among these were West and Virgil Abloh, who would one day reach high positions in a system that we would call more inclusive. Already from that moment West would have coined a bargaining chip with the public, which was not always seen to be used in fashion which, however ideal, always responds to the practical and shameless law of the market, or the hidden truth, the one that no one wants to tell, but that only he is determined to show. And from there a succession of collections of his Yeezy brand, which, between black and rosy colors, almost second skin, and over boxing shapes, advocates a message of revolution, which however from the latest events appears to mark an involution, that is a return back, towards the origins that looking at them now seem so distant and different.

The “ white lives matter ” jerseys, the show made up of very young people just turned ten, the mystical choirs that resonate between shapes “ inspired ” by the great masters like Rei Kawakubo and Yamamoto: but, then, it shouldn’t have been him guide to progress and openness? Where have the liberal principles gone?
It is not known, perhaps they have been lost along a path that has never encountered a confrontation and an obstacle, continually praised by the media and loved by the signatures of the star system of which we remember being part, even before his arrival in the realm of dress, as a singer. Only now the press coverege is loosening its relations with the designer, who is not lacking in social clashes, such as the one addressed to Lynette Nylander, executive editorial director of Dazed Media, who had defined him as a derisory man with fickle principles, to whom West he responded with inferences and criticisms, he who had invited her as a guest to his latest secret show.

A poetics of the absurd a la Kanye West where everything has a moral expedient and is aimed at a teaching that cannot and must not justify the means.

Between truth and alterations of truth, Kanye West, also known as the ” Steve Jobs of fashion ” for friends, is nothing more than a reaffirmation of how much power resides in the public that in a few simple gestures, from purchase to post on Instagram, it can consolidate a centralized mechanism on the individual, elected as the ruler of a split reality with which we must deal.

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Luca Cioffi

Nato e cresciuto a Roma. Dopo la laurea presso lo IED mi sono trasferito a Milano dove ho avviato le mie esperienze lavorative come contributor ed editor per alcune testate, occupandomi di analisi di moda e arte contemporanea. Ad ora collaboro con più magazine seguendo l’online ed il print.