Wicked Or Weakness

11 X 17 Inches
3-color Screen Print
Signed
Created in 2020

$30

At this point Kendrick Lamar has become a household name and most English speaking people, even those removed from the world of rap music, are familiar with that name. For those of you that have never listened to him before, I strongly recommend that you try some of his songs. For those of you that have only a passing knowledge, I strongly recommend looking deeper. He really is as magnificent as his reputation promises. As far as I am concerned, he ranks with the greatest living artists, among names including David Lynch, Kerry James Marshall, Marlene Dumas, David Burn, Spike Lee… Here is a link to a very short essay I wrote which compares his album “Good Kid M.A.A.D City” to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”

Humble (the song featuring these lyrics) is one of his most beloved songs and it is certainly a masterpiece. Listen to it here.

A koan is a sort of zen thought experiment, one that acts as a vehicle to pass the limitations of thought. They are small objects of language that trip up our logic and offer a momentary transcendence. The one that most Americans are familiar with is, “What is the sound of one hand [clapping]?” Koans were created by specific monks and there is a sort of academia around them but the nature of the koan can be found in languages and cultures throughout time and geography, often in the form of poetry or enigmatic idioms or jokes. 

These“bodhisttva” prints pair buddhist imagery with bits of language, penned by writers that I love, that offer this kind of koan magic.