ANGELS IN AMERICA: Kanye West has a bone to pick with Harper’s Bazaar, according to his comments in GQ’s “Men of the Year” issue. The rapper declares his distaste for the Hearst fashion magazine after it reported that a mural painted on a ceiling in West’s Los Angeles home was of himself. “That pissed me off so bad,” West tells GQ writer Chris Heath. “That made me so mad. Because who would want to hang out with a guy with an 8-foot picture of an angel of himself?”
West commissioned artist Ernie Barnes to paint a large mural of an angel reaching down from the heavens, with a number of small angels and heavenly creatures floating around him. The mural was photographed for Harper’s Bazaar’s feature of West and fiancée Alexis Phifer in their Los Angeles home in its August issue, in which Amy Spencer wrote: “And on the dining-room ceiling, what looks like an ode to the Sistine Chapel: a painting of West flying among angels by artist Ernie Barnes. ‘I asked for angels, and he put me in there,’ West explains a bit bashfully.” The magazine also described the mural in a caption: “a ceiling-mounted painting featuring a winged West.”
Did Harper’s Bazaar get it wrong? According to a source close to West, the caption was inaccurate to say the largest being depicted in the mural was West. West is in fact a part of the mural, he’s just not the central celestial being. Barnes painted a lifeless version of West that is being carried by one of the angels. The mural is an artistic nod to West having survived a serious car accident in 2002, an event which inspired his first hit, “Through the Wire.” Glenda Bailey, editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, responded: “If Kanye would like us to clarify our caption in which we refer to him as a ‘winged West’ rather than as ‘riding on the shoulders of the Grim Reaper’ and as a ‘lifeless form ascending into the heavens, carried by an angel,’ as the artist depicted him, we’d be more than happy to comply.” West, who is prepping to attend his mother’s funeral and was not available for comment, was named one of GQ’s men of the year and is one of three cover subjects, including Bill Clinton and Daniel Craig. — Stephanie D. Smith
West commissioned artist Ernie Barnes to paint a large mural of an angel reaching down from the heavens, with a number of small angels and heavenly creatures floating around him. The mural was photographed for Harper’s Bazaar’s feature of West and fiancée Alexis Phifer in their Los Angeles home in its August issue, in which Amy Spencer wrote: “And on the dining-room ceiling, what looks like an ode to the Sistine Chapel: a painting of West flying among angels by artist Ernie Barnes. ‘I asked for angels, and he put me in there,’ West explains a bit bashfully.” The magazine also described the mural in a caption: “a ceiling-mounted painting featuring a winged West.”
Did Harper’s Bazaar get it wrong? According to a source close to West, the caption was inaccurate to say the largest being depicted in the mural was West. West is in fact a part of the mural, he’s just not the central celestial being. Barnes painted a lifeless version of West that is being carried by one of the angels. The mural is an artistic nod to West having survived a serious car accident in 2002, an event which inspired his first hit, “Through the Wire.” Glenda Bailey, editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, responded: “If Kanye would like us to clarify our caption in which we refer to him as a ‘winged West’ rather than as ‘riding on the shoulders of the Grim Reaper’ and as a ‘lifeless form ascending into the heavens, carried by an angel,’ as the artist depicted him, we’d be more than happy to comply.” West, who is prepping to attend his mother’s funeral and was not available for comment, was named one of GQ’s men of the year and is one of three cover subjects, including Bill Clinton and Daniel Craig. — Stephanie D. Smith
