Elvis is dead.

This was shouted out to the country periodically on Wednesday by ESPN talking head Stephen A. Smith, visiting Memphis as part of ESPN’s “All Access” broadcast with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Smith was objecting to the ratio of Elvis-themed billboards to Ja Morant-themed billboards around the city. And, well, I’m sorry Mr. Smith, but Graceland and the Grizzlies have their own marketing budgets and can do with them what they please. 

ESPN in Memphis: Follow the Grizzlies’ day in the spotlight

I can assure you this just-passing-through observation was not a sign of current civic interest. 

Smith probably had no idea he was manufacturing some phony Elvis controversy — or trying to — in a city already dealing with a real one. 

Most Memphians don’t think much about Elvis anymore, but this week, that old hunka hunka burning love was unavoidable. And it isn’t even January or August. 

The pre-existing condition, of course, was the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority’s rather bizarre decision, made public at the beginning of the week, to remove a work of art — or two, paired together — from Memphis-bred photographer and artist Tommy Kha. 

Photographer’s work removed from Memphis airport

The work — “Constellations VIII/Golden Fields” — pairs a large self-portrait (“Constellations VIII”) of Kha, clad in a Vegas-era Elvis-style jumpsuit and standing in a mid-century-style kitchen, with a smaller image (“Golden Fields”) of a cutout of Elvis in his famous Fifties-era gold suit, laid across a swirl of gold sheets and pillows. The saturated blues and reds behind the overlapping images evoke groundbreaking Memphis color photographer William Eggleston, a Kha influence. 

A little bit Elvis, a little big Eggleston and all Tommy Kha, who grew up in an immigrant family in Whitehaven, even attending Graceland Elementary, and became a fixture on the Memphis arts scene before emerging as an acclaimed artist beyond our borders. In other words, a deeply Memphis work, fitting the celebrated explosion of local art in the Memphis Airport’s celebrated new Concourse B.

Removing Kha’s art and then returning it was a deeply unnecessary two-day drama with a surprising start and entirely predictable conclusion. 

Petition started to bring Tommy Kha back to Memphis International

The whole ordeal was a self-inflicted wound by the Airport Authority and, first and foremost, a rather shameful disservice to Kha. But it was also a disservice to the other artists whose work is on display and to the people who endeavored to put it there. The airport did a disservice to itself.

And, you know what? It did a disservice to Elvis, too. He didn’t ask for this anymore than Kha did.

In their initial decision, the Airport Authority cited “negative feedback” from “Elvis fans.” It’s still unclear whether they were simply moved by random, relatively anonymous complaints or received more specific prodding. 

Airport Authority faces challenges as passengers’ numbers grow

But either way, it raises the question of who gets to be an “Elvis fan” and who has a claim on the image and idea of the biggest icon Memphis ever produced. 

It’s hard to know, beyond simple racism — and I think it must be much more than that — what the real objection was to this compelling but not particularly provocative work.

But what’s meant by “Elvis fans,” in this context, is less mysterious to anyone who’s logged time at the annual Candlelight Vigil or other major “official” Elvis events. 

God love ’em, but they are an aging, shrinking lot. Their conception of this sometimes great artist (when he was allowed to be, or allowed himself) and always major cultural figure is narrow, too mundane and too generational. Their money spends, but what Elvis means to Memphis, if he is to keep on meaning, should be grander. 

The idea of “Elvis” doesn’t only belong to this particular breed of “Elvis fan.” It doesn’t even only belong to his estate or the Elvis Presley Enterprises structure that manages and monetizes his image and legacy. 

To whom does Elvis belong? Kha, a Memphis kid who grew up almost literally in the shadow of Elvis’ house, certainly has as much claim to the idea of Elvis as any tourist.

The works in question are from 2017 and 2013, by the way. Kha’s done artistic treatments of Elvis tribute artists, whose work he respects. 

Appeals court rejects Graceland’s claim on FedExForum noncompete

Elvis Presley was a man. But “Elvis” is a public idea. It’s an idea that belongs to anyone. It belongs to Tommy Kha. And it belongs to you and me, if we want it. 

This incident was about art at the airport. But it was also about the living legacy of old, dead Elvis in the city that made him. 

Over the past generation, Memphis has lost the healthy irreverence for Elvis that we once had. 

When I moved to Memphis as a teenager in 1989, it was to a world of Dead Elvis Balls. 

You might wander into a club and see acts such as El Vez or Elvis Herselvis or Dread Zeppelin (a reggae Led Zeppelin cover band with a Vegas-style Elvis lead singer). Once, in high school, I saw a Punjabi Elvis act at the Antenna Club. Somebody cut out pieces of brown shag carpet in the shape of sideburns, tape affixed, and handed them out at the door. 

You could road trip through the broader region to such lunatic destinations as Graceland Too (Holly Springs, Mississippi) or the Elvis is Alive Museum and Cafe (Wright City, Missouri). 

Over the past decade or so, the compound at Graceland has expanded as interest in Elvis around the city seems to have declined. These two things may not be causally linked, in either direction. The former is a worthy thing, especially as Graceland has expanded beyond Elvis with a welcome slate of concerts and other events on its grounds. And perhaps the latter was inevitable with time. 

The shadow of the mid-'50s cultural boom doesn’t hang over the young adults of the city today the way it did still in the 1980s and even 1990s. 

Still, I don’t think it’s a great thing for Memphis, or Elvis, that the city has ceded so much of the Elvis experience to Graceland/EPE. We could use more Unofficial Elvis. 

Elvis was a man who changed global culture and then came home to put green carpeting on his ceiling and three televisions in his den. Irreverence should be inherent. It is not at all separate from affection.

“Elvis,” as idea and image and art, has always been contested terrain. This is as it should be. It’s now increasingly abandoned terrain, and Memphis loses something with this abandonment. 

To be contested is to matter. Art like Tommy Kha’s doesn’t disrespect Elvis, it helps rescue him. 

Culturally, Memphis forever risks becoming a mausoleum. 

Memphis airport to reinstall Tommy Kha artwork

That Kha’s work exists outside of the increasingly narrow, increasingly protected official Elvis narrative makes it all the more pertinent. 

This isn’t Col. Parker’s Elvis, it’s more Sam Phillips’ Elvis: ornery and unauthorized. It’s “Mystery Train” filmmaker Jim Jarmusch’s Elvis, preserving an innate weirdness that time has smoothed over. 

Kha’s work is personal, compelling and disorienting in the way good art often is. Its presence, greeting visitors and returning citizens alike, makes Memphis seem more lively and interesting. It does the same for Elvis. It suggests a city that cares about its legacy but is not a prisoner to it. That is willing to wrestle with it. To play with it. It is emblematic of the city we should be. 

The reactionary impulse that took down Kha’s art, if even for a couple of days, is much the same as that which let Stax get torn down a generation ago. Memphis has a well-earned reputation as a creative city, but that creativity has too often had to battle against institutional neglect or resistance. 

The Memphians who rose up to reject the airport’s action and get Kha’s work back up defended Kha, defended art, and defended Memphis. They also, whether they cared to or not, defended Elvis, or any idea of him worth having.