‘George Floyd died for us’: ASU art exhibit depicts George Floyd as Jesus Christ

The art exhibit titled, "Twin Flames: The George Floyd Uprising from Minneapolis to Phoenix" included imagery and narratives that elevated Floyd, who had a lengthy violent criminal history and a drug habit, to a mythical status.

Eliza Wesley, known as "The Gatekeeper of George Floyd Square," delivered a speech accompanying the exhibit in which she compared George Floyd to Jesus Christ. She described Floyd as the "chosen" one who died for "each and every last one of us."

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"It's been a rough ride. When I came here today I almost had an emotional breakdown because it reminded me of the day that George Floyd got killed. Where they get you to lay the flowers at, the red represents the blood and the white represents the purification that George Floyd died for us. Each and every last one of us," said Wesley.

"Had no George Floyd died, we wouldn't be here. God chose him. He was a chosen vessel. Many are called, but few are chosen," she concluded, per video footage taken by Frontlines.

The display included posters used in Minneapolis and Phoenix during the BLM and Antifa riots, which went on for months, and affected nearly every major city in the United States.

Most notably, one of the paintings depicted George Floyd with a crown of thorns on his head, just as was placed on the head of Jesus Christ when he was crucified on the cross, per Christian teaching.

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According to ASU's website, "Twin Flames: The George Floyd Uprising from Minneapolis to Phoenix" was created in partnership with ASU's Center for Work and Democracy and the George Floyd Global Memorial.

The display, the curatorial note reads, is meant to ask important questions "about the role of art and community as a vehicle for bearing witness and creating deeper understanding and empathy."

"In contrast to traditional monuments, 'Twin Flames' is a powerful, community-led exhibition that showcases a selection of the thousands of offerings laid by mourners and protesters at George Floyd Square, collected by a group of community caretakers and cataloged by the George Floyd Global Memorial team," the website reads. "This exhibition recognizes that creative and artistic expressions of pain and hope exist beyond the walls of museums, in all forms and a myriad of cultural expressions, and that George Floyd Square is a public space that can teach us how to mobilize as we mourn victims of police violence and imagine a more just world."