Nicki Minaj looks wicked as the latest cover girl of W Magazine's November issue. In it, the groundbreaking rapper portrays influences of Neo-Rococo/18th-century courtesan in several shots created and directed by artist Francesco Vezzoli. Nicki seems very much in her element, already having set the standards for future fashion chameleons in the musique industry.
Vezzoli chatted about his new endeavores for a one on one interview with Klaus Biesenbach, "director of MoMA PS1, who is organizing a touring retrospective of Vezzoli’s work that will land at the New York venue in 2013."
You have a history of collaborating with celebrities. What interested you in working on a project with Nicki Minaj?
Vezzoli:I wanted to play with the public image of a female hip-hop star. During my entire career, I have always been fascinated by powerful women in history. I have spent a lot of time researching the ways they were represented in art and how their images were used to mold the public imagination—and to convey aesthetic and philosophical ideas about beauty and sexual desire. My main interest has been to link the historical artistic approach to female representation to contemporary icons of the media era.
In my most recent works, for example, I transformed Princess Caroline of Hanover into a Garbo-esque Queen Christina, I asked actress Eva Mendes to become three symbols of classical sculpture (Venus, Saint Teresa, and Paolina Borghese), and I framed Lady Gaga into a de Chirico–inspired robotic extravaganza. For W, I wanted to turn the lovely Nicki Minaj into a powdered 18th-century courtesan.
How have you transformed her?
Vezzoli: In her performances, Minaj makes very explicit and challenging use of her beauty and her body, so I thought of comparing her to some of the most famous courtesans in history: the Marquise de Montespan, Comtesse du Barry, Madame de Pompadour, and Madame Rimsky-Korsakov. My idea was to reproduce four iconic portraits of some of the most fascinating females of the past in a series starring an American pop-culture role model. We tried to re-create those original portraits using similar furniture, props, and clothing, à la Visconti. Luckily enough, the result came out as surreal as it could be, just as I wished.
Whether he thinks his next projects will involve transformations of place?
Vezzoli: For my upcoming solo exhibition, I am trying to get a real 15th-century Italian Catholic church that we’re going to dismantle and rebuild in every venue the show travels to, starting in May 2012—from MAXXI in Rome and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, in Qatar, to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and then on to MoMA PS1 in New York. You could say that the show is a cross between a Gordon Matta-Clark piece and the Cher farewell tour. In any case, it seems like a good way to discuss the ephemeral nature of art and the complex relationship between artists and the powers that allow them to exist.
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In case you haven't already seen kiddas, scope out 5 year old Sophia Grace completely slaughter a rendition of Minaj's "Super Bass" which she originally streamed on YouTube before appearing on The Ellen Degeneres Show!
