Let’s face it, Lady Gaga is pretty much a living, breathing work of art. The over-the-top, daring, colourful pop star does actually have some pretty strong art world credentials too, though. Want to know what they are? Well dear readers, here are 7 times Gaga cemented her art world credentials!
ARTPOP
Let’s start with the obvious, shall we? Beyond the fact that Gaga literally put the word “art” into the name of her album ARTPOP, she also enlisted Jeff Koons to put the cover artwork together. The cover is a collage of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Koons’s own gazing ball. She even had her very own ArtRave launch party, a $3 million extravaganza featuring work by Inez & Vinoodh, Marina Abramovic and Jeff Koons. That’s pretty impressive!
NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Word has it that Gaga went to the Tisch school long before she was Gaga and, even though she studied music, she is said to have even written a thesis on Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst. Who knew, eh?
The Marina Abramovic Method
In 2013 Ms Gaga embarked on the “Abramovic method”, recreating the iconic artist’s past performances. It does seem a little odd, but at the same time, Marina and Gaga also seem like a match made in heaven.
Gaga At The Louvre
In 2013 artist-photographer Robert Wilson was a guest curator at the Louvre in Paris and used this opportunity to make video portraits of Gaga playing the role as some of the most celebrated characters in the museum’s collection. Amongst the paintings serving as inspiration were Andrea Solario’s Head of Saint John the Baptist on a Charger and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere.
The NFT
Following on from their collaboration at the Louvre, Robert Wilson has just minted a video portrait of Lady Gaga – a re-staging of Jacques-Louis David’s 1793 Death of Marat – as an NFT. The non-fungible is a re-edit of the eight-year old collaboration and was part of Phillips’ 20th Century and Contemporary Sale on June 24 in New York, selling for $15,120!
The Arty Award
In 2015 Lady Gaga’s position as an artist was confirmed when she was awarded with the Young Artist award as a musician, philanthropist and fine artist at the National Arts Awards in New York. She was presented with her prize by none other than MoMA’s Klaus Biesenbach. The award is designed as a Jeff Koons balloon bunny, that’s pretty cool!
The Met Gala
Let’s finish with the obvious, shall we? In 2019 Lady Gaga co-hosted the infamous Met Ball, a gala that takes place – in usual times – every May at possibly the most prestigious museum in the world, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. And, if being invited to co-host a bash at The Met doesn’t make you art world royalty, then I’m not sure what does. And of course, Gaga being Gaga, she made an entrance with a bang!
Text Lizzy Vartanian
