Kanye West Unveils His "Portrait of Power"
When Kanye West began talking up his high-concept music video for "Power," the recently released single from his upcoming untitled album, no one really knew what to expect. West himself tweeted minutes before it premiered on MTV that it was "not a video" but rather a "moving painting."
That actually turned out to be a pretty accurate, if moderately pretentious, description. The 90-second video—ahem, sorry, "moving painting"—depicts an intricate neoclassical tableau. The elements of the image are set in motion, although the composition and arrangement of the elements are more akin to a painting than a traditional work of video art.
While it's not entirely to my taste, I admire West's dedication to make strange, envelope-pushing music videos. The craftsmanship that filmmaker and visual artist Marco Brambilla put into the work is fairly remarkable. It's over-the-top and almost absurdly baroque, but it's hard to criticize that aesthetic when it meshes so perfectly with West's public persona.
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