I have been following Jay-Z’s recent
“performance piece” at Pace Gallery in conjunction with the release of his new
album Magna Carta…Holy Grail. The event
was a video shoot for the song “Picasso Baby” that is featured on the new album.
Internationally celebrated performance artist Marina Abramović also took part
in this project. Abramović’ has been described as “exploring the physical and
mental limits of her being, she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in
the quest for emotional and spiritual transformation.” Her work is extraordinary
and she truly is one of the most important and iconic performance artists
living today.
Jay-Z’s lyrics are appalling and the performance itself was laughably awkward
and ridiculous. I reposted an article by Bob Duggan on Big Think’s
website “Did Jay-Z Just Kill Performance Art?” in which he quips that “Jay-Z’s
foray into the art world reminds me of Andy Warhol’s 1985 guest appearance on
The Love Boat.”
Shortly after posting the article I
received a comment from a thoughtful friend not directly affiliated with the art world:
Art and culture are inextricable, so as much as a bruise on the art as
Jay-Z's behavior is from a purist perspective ... it is a real bruise that
should also be honored or observed for what it is... Does that make any sense
from a non-art person?
I started to write her a response on
Facebook, and then realized that I needed to write more about the issue, and
make it clear what specifically I am objecting to when I criticize this
“performance” piece. I am and have been throughout my career deeply supportive
of new forms of art, installation, and performance work. My Master’s Thesis was
based on this concept. To quote myself on this topic:
When initially presented, new forms of art and installation can incite
hostility and derision among art patrons, critics, and general audiences. New paradigms are unsettling and artistic
breakthroughs can threaten belief systems people hold dear to their
understanding of the art world and how it functions. Some of the most
distinguished and iconic artists in modern history have found notoriety and
recognition through years, even decades, of slowly evolving acceptance into the
cultural mainstream.
Once labeled charlatans heralding a clear decline in culture, such eminent
artists as Theodore Gericault, Edouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and Marcel Duchamp
incited public fury and scathing criticism in their respective eras for the
ground-breaking work they produced. By challenging the conventions of how art
is supposed to look and function, artists operating outside that norm encounter
a public largely unprepared and unwilling to accept their permutations.
I do not think that Jay-Z’s performance
with Abramović is a mind bending artistic breakthrough and I do not believe
he is the art world’s next Pablo Picasso (though he believes it to be true, see lyrics below). I am not troubled by the fact that a rapper
and performance artist held court at Pace Gallery because they are both wealthy
and famous and can make that happen. It’s also another example of a trend of
interesting crossovers between art and pop culture (think Wei Wei and Anish
Kapoor recently doing renditions of rapper Psy’s “Gangnam Style”).
After giving it more thought following
the Facebook post, the real issue is Picasso Baby’s lyrics. Women and art are brutishly
debased and denigrated for the sake of Jay-Z’s ego and hunger for power, wealth,
and status. The following are just a few choice lines from a lengthy and
painfully descriptive song.
I wanna
Rothko, no, I wanna brothel
No, I want a
wife that fuck me like a prostitute
In a dirty
hotel with the fan on the ceiling
All for the
love of drug dealing
Marble
Floors, gold Ceilings
Oh, what a
feeling, fuck it, I want a billion
Jeff Koons
balloons, I just wanna blow up
Condos in my
condos, I wanna row of
Christie's
with my missy, live at the MoMA
See me
throning at the Met
Vogueing on
these niggas, champagne on my breath, yes
House like
the Louvre or the Tate Modern
Because I be
going ape at the auction
Oh what a
feeling, aw, fuck it, I want a trillion
Sleeping
every night next to Mona Lisa
The modern
day version with better features
Yellow
Basquiat in my kitchen corner
Go ahead
lean on that shit Blue, you own it
For you to
see, I'm the modern day Pablo, Picasso baby
The acquisition of art has been
an indicator of wealth, culture and power for centuries. That has positive and
negative ramifications, but the fact that Jay-Z wants loads of famous paintings
to line his walls is neither shocking nor destructive. The combination,
however, of violence, misogyny, and disregard for the works themselves
(encouraging his daughter to “lean on that shit because you own it” referencing
a painting by Jean-Michele Basquiat) is idiotic and dishonorable.
In a New
Yorker article by Emma Allen, Jay-Z’s art advisor states that “he’s
thinking about his relationship to art and to how you want one thing and then
you want the next thing and then it comes all the way back around; now he has a
family and how he passes on the cultural baggage.” In the same article Abramović
said “I love his music, because it’s social issues, it’s political, and really
goes to everybody’s heart. It’s so good. It’s like a volcano.”
 |
| With Alanna Heiss, my confusion mounts |
In a bizarre twist of personal fate, I discovered that Alanna Heiss was an active participant in this project. Founder of MoMA's P.S.1 and Art on Air, Heiss is one of the three women that comprise my thesis (quoted above). I spent days interviewing her, and endlessly admire her intrepid career and fearless ways. I find myself caught in a strange conundrum.
So Jay-Z’s lyrics are irony and satire. He is
essentially the Stephen Colbert of the rap world. He is so revolutionary and paradigm
shifting that I actually missed the profound and complex relationship to the
art world and the strategic method by which he passes his cultural baggage to
his daughter by telling her to “lean on that shit.” These lyrics go straight to everybody’s
heart. No, I am still not buying it.
Bob Duggan gives Jay-Z entirely too much credit to be the herald of the death of performance art. I do, however, still agree with his underlying message that I posted this morning.
“Assuming that she’s heard the lyrics, it saddens me that Marina
Abramović’s cooperated with “Picasso Baby” after all she’s done for women in
art. More than anything else, it’s Jay-Z’s lyrics’ misogyny and disrespect for
art itself that will kill performance art purely by association.”
