Nicola Tesla (2017)

The Double Expropriation

Tesla is often romanticized as an esoteric genius. This portrait grounds him in economic reality: he was a brilliant immigrant pushed out of the market by Thomas Edison during the “War of Currents” using brutal methods—including public animal killings. But the exploitation did not end with his death. Today, Tesla undergoes a second, semantic expropriation: Elon Musk, the planet’s wealthiest actor, seized the name of the penniless underdog and rebranded it as a car manufacturer. The painting captures the fading of a man whose identity has become a mere shell for corporate interests. It stands as a monument to the bitter irony that the name of history’s greatest idealist now serves as a synonym for aggressive capitalism.