Same old shit

Dressed in a

Tiffany blue double-

breasted suit

,

hip hop star Jay-Z poses with singer Beyoncé leaning on the railing that protects

La Gioconda

at the Louvre. These are the first sequences of the

Apeshit

video

clip,

which will serve as the promotional start for their joint album

Everything is Love.

It was the autumn of 2018. So, it did not seem very fascinating, nor unseemly, that one of the most powerful couples inherent to our contrived time had rented the rooms of the Parisian art gallery as a

filming

set

for a video that spoke of the black experience in universal art, where people of color are shown with little dignity, with pathos or under an orientalist mystique.

The lyrics of

Apeshit

(which plays ambiguously with the literal translation of "monkey poop" and "

go apeshit

", in the popular slang "to become a monkey", "to go crazy") spoke of millionaires,

grammys

, jets,

patek philippes and

diamonds Pure self-celebration, if it weren't for the song purporting to be a critique of the white world. Probably no one at that time noticed that the color of the suit that Jay-Z wore in a cocky way was the same as the one that Charles Lewis Tiffany began using in 1845 to decorate the caskets and chocolates of his luxury brand, which became the most acclaimed in the world. world. However, everything was studied to the clinical detail: that color - Pantone number 1837, a reference to the year Tiffany was founded - was a key element in the staging of the Carter marriage in the museum

par excellence.

For a few years, the New York rapper and producer, who shares with the LVMH conglomerate 50% of the shareholding of his

Armand de Brignac

champagne

(popularly known as

Ace of Spades

), maintains a productive friendship with Alexandre Arnault, son of the owner of the luxury multinational that last January was to finally take over the property of the prestigious North American jewelry brand. Jay-Z owns luxurious apartments and mansions, loves contemporary art, has his own clothing line, and sports team and record label franchises. An advertising mind, the Don Draper of hip hop. It remains unclear whether her vindication of black racial identity (black feminism, in Beyoncé's case) is the true end of her industrious presence in the predominantly white capitalist world, or simply a willingness to accept that same universe of fame. and almost metaphysical exclusivity, because even if they criticize him, he will keep alive the idealism that, in truth, the lives of blacks count.

In this matter, the acronym LVMH-BLM goes to the rhythm of the syncopation of rap, because Jay-Z and Beyoncé are the protagonists of the new advertising campaign of Tiffany & Co entitled

About Love,

in what seems the second chapter of which three years earlier they had brought the Louvre with an almost similar title.

The invisible thread is still the one that sews the famous

Tiffany blue

, but the love story is no longer

platonized

.

The controversy surrounding the painting, which Alexandre Arnault had just acquired, soon stirred up social networks, less because of the racist history of diamond mining and more because of the manipulation of the painting's "message".

Photographs by Mason Moore and the film by Emmanuel Adjei show Beyoncé in a tight black dress with a mermaid drop, a bare back and a high, classic Hollywood hairstyle. The 128-carat Tiffany diamond hangs from her neck, the same one that Audrey Hepburn wore to her

Diamond Breakfast

, and most recently Lady Gaga at the 2019 Oscars ceremony. Jay-Z, dressed in a tuxedo and seated, watches her on a cube armchair, and leaning against the wall is Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting

Equals Pi

(1982), with its typical masks, diagrams and sarcastic phrases.

The controversy surrounding the painting, which had just been acquired by Alexandre Arnault, soon stirred up social networks, less because of the racist story around diamond mining and more because of the possible manipulation of the painting's “message” and its challenge. to the integrity of an artist. They refer to the famous

blue Tiffany -

also called

blue robin 's

egg

(

robbin 's egg blue

, this yes, a true masterpiece of nature), which, according to its owner, would be a tribute by the painter to the luxury house and its characteristic color. “We don't know for sure if Basquiat made the painting with Tiffany in mind, but we know her family, a few years ago we had an exhibition of her work at the Louis Vuitton Foundation. We know you loved New York, luxury and jewelry. And I guess this blue is no accident. The color is so specific that it looks like a tribute, "he said.

Something with which Larry Gagosian, the all-powerful dealer with whom Basquiat worked in Los Angeles in the early 1980s and who provides art to the Arnault family, seems to be disagreeable ambiguously. After specifying that he was not involved in the sale of the painting, which was first acquired in 1982 by the publicist Anne Dayton for the sum of 7000 dollars (the canvas was then titled

Still Pi

and the invoice is still kept as

the true

work of art ), the gallery owner told the

New York Times

that

“Basquiat always mixed his own colors.

While you might know about Tiffany blue boxes, to suggest that blue is a direct reference is going too far.

It's a very evocative color, and you might just like to use it, just like you did in some other paintings. "

Since September 2,

Equals Pi

has been on display at Tiffany's flagship boutique on Fifth Avenue and on September 15, Adjei's film was released on different media around the world.

“Basquiat always mixed his own colors.

While I might know the blue boxes from Tiffany, suggesting that blue is a direct reference is going too far. "

Beyond the commercialization of everything that moves - and does not move - in the environment of artistic celebrities, it would be convenient to free art from all pamphletism so that the one who owns it and enjoys it is responsible for the good or misuse of your story. Art and money have always been two sides of the same coin and the same thing that an artist like Richard Prince (of whom Jay-Z owns numerous works)

hacked

the images of the Marlboro cowboys to create their photographs (for those interested in knowing the beginnings of that advertising campaign, everything came from the offices that smelled of sex, alcohol and tobacco of the Madison Men), there will always be the way back to luxury firms like Tiffany & Co, the official sponsor of the Whitney Biennial, whose board, by the way, had until relatively recently arms producers and obscure businessmen. In them we will see the enemy of art and not in an inane disquisition - to which this article will surely contribute - about a color that will only serve to publicize the luxury conglomerate. It's the same old shit, the one that Basquiat and his colleague Al Díaz denounced when they stamped the graffiti with the acronym SAMO © (

same old shit

) in the suburbs of downtown Manhattan meaning yes, indeed, that they smoked marijuana and did the same old shit.

Make no mistake, the center of criticism of the art world is its mobility, the fact of always changing places in an obscene way, escaping but always appearing in the photo.

At this point in the film, the artist to whom we owe the most respect is the photographer Nan Goldin, who with her tireless demonstrations and denunciations at the Metropolitan was able to extract the golden names of the city from museums and libraries around the world. family of Sackler patrons, owners of the Purdue drug company that produced the painkiller Oxycontin (and Goldin herself was a victim of that opiate).

And with those dung we are still.

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