Jimi Hendrix was one of the greatest guitar players ever - if you are even remotely interested in guitar, and you haven't heard his performance of the Star Spangled Banner on Youtube, stop what you are doing and go here.
However, to equate Hendix to a 10 armed Hindu god, and then to put him on Converse shoes...may be taking creativity a bit too far...add this to Ganesha on toilet seats, supermodels dressing up a Kali, and more....good cocktail party chat fodder..
Per the company, "With approval of the Hendrix estate, we applied artwork taken directly from the 1967 "Axis: Bold as Love" album cover. The cover art included images of Hindu deities. Our ambitions were to honor the music of Jimi Hendrix. It was not our intent to offend Hindu culture by having Hindu deities on footwear,"
To each his own, but imho this hardly looks like religious sacrilege. The same deities have had their personas assumed by very human actors in both ancient and modern plays and dances- I equate the adoption of a deic persona by a non-deity with a depiction in the style thereof: both done by human hands, and interpreted by human minds. Models as Kali, therefore, gets a pass.
ReplyDeleteAnd the idea behind the original art was to draw a connection between Hendrix's spirituality (whether genuine or otherwise), and his talent (many arms = awesome guitarist (imagine the speed riffs!)). Was there a similar outcry when it first released, I wonder?
Though I agree- Ganesh toilet seats are abit much.