Anna Wintour is an icon not only in fashion, as the steely VOGUE editor, but also in art. Now, an exhibition has been created in her honor in a solo show by Brooklyn artist Laura Collins. The exhibition Anna Wintour Double Crossing Her Legs is a solo show that recently opened at the THNK Museum in New York featuring that exactly in a series of 12 enormous oil paintings.
The artist is no stranger to pop culture and fashion mashups as her subject. In fact, she is a bit of a celebrity portraiture artist, having two previous solo shows that got attention from some of the reality stars themselves – her previous solo shows at THNK were The Olsen Twins Hiding From the Paparazzi, which showed some of the strangest photos of the twins, to Real Housewives Pointing Fingers, which captured their sassy spirit in painted form from some of the most argumentative reality stars in American TV history.
Anna Wintour Double-Crossing Her Legs no. 2
The museum is a bit of a pup culture mainstay, having devoted entire exhibitions to Sex and the City characters (one was called Yama Kippi Yay Bo! A Celebration of Kim Cattrall), not to mention a show devoted to Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie’s reality TV days (Popculturediedin2009 presents: Nicole Richie’s 2007 Memorial Day BBQ. It’s not all 2000s history, though, as their Celebrities Smoking in the Bathroom at the Met Ballshowed fashion models doing that exactly, throughout the years to more recently.
This exhibit celebrates Anna Wintour as a front-row fashion icon, and what exactly she looks like when judging the works of fashion designers.
Anna Wintour Double-Crossing Her Legs no. 6
This all feels very performative! But it goes on. “We’ll call upstairs and after being scolded for holding up such an important model we’ll embarrassingly say, ‘Anna will see you now,’” said Harkins.
Anna Wintour Double-Crossing Her Legs no. 11
“We will then look down, ashamed. You will walk down the runway, cameras flashing, the most important walk of your life. Everywhere you turn Anna is watching, whispering to other Anna’s, deciding your fate, all of their legs effortlessly double crossed. This is how an icon sits.”
Text by Nadja Sayej
Photos via Laura Collins
