Jay-Z at Pace Gallery, NYC
Jay-Z is making a gallery installation/performance art piece out of the taping for his "Picasso Baby" video shoot, taking place not now but right nowat Pace Galleries here in NYC. Dressed in a short-sleeved white button down to match the pristine white walls, International Hov is rapping (ok, lip-synching) the verses from the first single off his Magna Carta Holy Grail project for 6 hours straight, putting himself on a pedestal so to speaks as a living, rapping, sculpture.Wale, Judd Apatow and Girls star Adam Driver are among those spotted in the gallery crowd being encouraged to jump in and rap along, along with--presumably--a grip of unsuspecting art patrons who just happened to be in the Chelsea gallery district when shit popped off. Or popped up, rather. While it is interesting to see artists turning the vacuum of album art and videos into actual high art happenings in this new--Jay's pop-up is clearly in the vein of Andrew WK's recent 24-hour drum off (with a little help from Questlove), Kanye West's guerilla screenings, Marina Abromovic's The Artist Is Present show andThe Nationals 6-hour performance of The Sorrow at MoMA PS1--in this instance, though, the erudite company feels much like the Basquiat and Picasso references laced throughout MCHG--i.e. it kind of begs for a Big Ghost to pop-up and say:
"We get it, sonyou like art. Chill tho."
Get a glimpse of all the happenings via the random-ass vines and instagrams trickling out below (just hope you all are taking these on Samsung phones--otherwise you could be forfeiting you immortal soul. Says so in that contract you signed.) and stay tuned to see how performance art translates into video art when "Picasso Baby" gets its official jawn.
