Kanye West remained still for 90 minutes on Monday. It was remarkable feat of willpower, a once-in-a-lifetime performance, certainly some kind of record. West — aka Yeezy, aka Ye, aka the Louis Vuitton Don, aka, fashion designer, filmmaker, wannabe architect, reluctant reality TV participant, stage crasher, president basher, instigator, headline maker, Chicagoan and ball of energy — stood patiently at the Auditorium Theatre for more than 30 minutes as 900 graduating students of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago filed slowly into their seats for commencement. Then he sat, for another hour, as SAIC provost Elissa Tenny introduced SAIC president Walter Massey, who introduced the dean of student affairs, who introduced gallery owner John Corbett, who introduced German painter Albert Oehlen …
West sat the whole time, not speaking, not interrupting or reaching for a microphone.
He listened.
He smiled. He rubbed his legs. He smiled more, applauded when appropriate, adjusted his black graduation robe, leveled the mortar board on his head. And then, when it was time to receive his honorary doctorate …
He was humble.
Even funny.
He stepped to the microphone, then stepped abruptly backstage, then stepped to the podium again and jokingly apologized for a lifetime of the things he has said: “I’m sorry, that was just my opinion.” He added he was nervous: “I felt my nerves a bit. I don’t feel that feeling a lot. The nerves of humility and modesty when being honored, a humanization of a reality of being recognized. All I thought as I sat (in the audience), kind of shaking a little bit, is I need to get rid of that feeling, I need to not be nervous.” Then, switching gears — as he did repeatedly in his five-minute, notes-free speech: “This honor is going to make your lives easier, for two reasons: You don’t have to defend me as much! And I’m going to make all of our lives easier.”
He did not explain.
He took long pauses.
The room was silent as he spoke. Addressing the controversy that has swirled around SAIC’s decision to honor him, he said, somewhat disjointedly but sincerely: “When I was giving a lecture at Oxford, I brought up this school. Because I went on a mission to create in other spaces — apparel, film, performance — but it would have been easier to have just said I had a degree at the Art Institute of Chicago!”
To be fair, by the time SAIC commencement actually happened, it’d been a long weekend.
On Sunday he performed an impromptu song at the United Center during a first quarter timeout at the Bulls game. Then he gave an hourlong lecture/Q&A at the SAIC, to a group of 400 students who packed a school auditorium, each of their tickets describing him as “an interdisciplinary artist whose work provokes cultural discourse by reflecting a realism of the street.” Some students agreed: He seemed a little nervous then, too. At one point he’d invited them to shout their questions at him. “Can I give you a hug?” “When are you going to open a school?” “What does Chicago mean to you?” “Can we hang out later?” “Do you wanna build a snowman?”
He answered the last one.
“I say I wanna build a snowman because I want Bob Iger, the head of Disney, to invest in my ideas. Not one idea, not a good idea, or even a bad idea — a series of them. But just in my ideas … I feel Disney should have an art fund that completely supports all of the artists and … I feel there should be a responsibility.”
If he was all over the place during his lecture, at graduation he was mostly immobile, sitting between Lisa Wainwright, dean of faculty and vice president of academic affairs, and artist/SAIC professor Nick Cave. Being the last honoree, alphabetically speaking — the others being Oehlen, Art Institute president Douglas Druick, gallery owner Rhona Hoffman and philanthropist/artist Janet Byrne Neiman — the tension was there, the elephant in the room waited. The lights in the auditorium cast a soft yellow haze, and extra security stood sentinel at the edges of the stage; West leaned forward in his white chair, seated in the front row facing the audience — a little like Fashion Week, but without runway models to draw away attention.
In the weeks before commencement, loud contingent of students and alumni made it clear they did not want him at graduation. But Monday, at the ceremony, the reaction to West was positive, even grateful: Rob Bondgren, dean of continuing studies, said “As an alum myself, I thought that if art students don’t understand why he is worthy of being recognized, then they’re not getting the degree I got.” Dave Pauldine, of Elmhurst, whose daughter was graduating, said the school had sent thoughtful letters to parents explaining the decision to honor West, “and I think they made a thoughtful, smart case for him as an artist. I think it was some of the kids who seemed more surprised by this than the parents, to be honest.”
Kenrick McFarlane, part of the graduating class, stood in the back of the auditorium waiting for his parents. He said: “Not everyone loved Jesus at first. Not everyone loves Yeezus. That’s how I see it.”
West did not descend to the podium. Cave offered a short introduction (“his visionary and ambitious career is a true reflection of the creative spirit”) and then West strode across the stage and was draped by Massey in the traditional academic stole. He grinned big and said: “I am a pop artist. So my medium is public opinion and the world is my canvas.”
He said: “‘I’m sorry’ is something that you can use a lot. It gives you the opportunity to give your opinion, apologize for it, and give your opinion again. People say ‘You shouldn’t have to be sorry for your opinions …'” And, alluding to the Hurricane Katrina telethon moment when he said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” he said: “George Bush … has some very cool self-portraits. I didn’t know he was an artist!”
Then he walked off.
So quickly Massey waved him back to collect his degree. Then West took a breather, hugged the academics and artists beside him, and darted off the stage to catch a plane — Dr. West left the building.
