George Condo

In New York Magazine, George Condo explains the meaning behind the six alternate covers for Kanye West's My Dark Twisted Fantasy. My personal favorites are Naked Sphinx Straddling Kanye (top middle), Priest (top right corner) and Head with Sword (middle left).

Here is Condo explaining Head with Sword.

“I really like that idea of a Shakespearian thing,” West told Condo about this painting of a severed head wearing a crown. The piece’s two contrasting styles -- “cubism and classicism forged together in a single painting” — dovetail, Condo says, with West’s music, with its “layers of different styles happening simultaneously.” What did Kanye see in the picture that made him like it? “His tragedy was a kind of exile that Kanye imposed upon himself,” Condo says. “He was free from exile by having the cathartic moment in the image. He’s alive in the painting, you know what I mean? In a strange way it’s like, he opened his eyes.”