Life Class shows us something beyond the machinery of celebrity, and we are left with the body of an American. The photo illustrates a broken boundary between high and low art where Pop uncomfortably and defiantly resides. In 1982, when Iggy Pop’s career was at a low point and his time with the Stooges was considered a curiosity, Pop released a limited edition memoir called I Need More that featured a cover photo of a topless Pop sucking on the breast of a marble statue. Iggy Pop himself managed to transcend the implosion of his first successful band and became the enfant terrible of rock & roll during the ’70s and ’80s. The Stooges were a prototypical garage band, conceptualized in Iggy’s family’s trailer and disseminated across the world to the highest reaches of popular art. Despite the decrepitude of the genre, rock & roll still carries the pretense of an outsider’s art form and a kind of folk art. “I saw this as a way to look at the iconography of rock music in a different way.”ĭeller’s sincerity was disarming. “Iggy Pop has…a body that is key to an understanding of rock music, and that has been paraded, celebrated and scrutinized through the years in a way that is unusual for a man,” Deller said. The earnest and articulate Deller was open, available and clearly pleased with how the piece had turned out, and he had every right to be. Iggy Pop has…a body that is key to an understanding of rock music. I attended the press preview of Deller’s latest piece in November, and as I listened to him talk about his work, I felt my skepticism replaced with feelings of gratitude and awe. Every sketch and portrait of Pop was gathered for the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection - and, for the current show, Deller contextualized selected pieces from Life Class with a small group of male nude paintings, photos and sculptures from the aforementioned collection. The show’s conceit is simple: singer and rock icon Iggy Pop posed naked in front of a diverse group of twenty-two artists for four hours in March of 2016. I was expecting an un-rigorous piece of work that I could dismiss off-hand. Even though I find him to be an immensely inspirational figure, Life Class seemed to leverage his celebrity in a blatant and uncreative way. At first glance, there seemed something pat and unsophisticated about a conceptual piece of art with Iggy Pop at the heart. artist Jeremy Deller’s latest piece, Iggy Pop Life Class, I was skeptical. Iggy Pop, Noveminterview with artist Jeremy Deller moderated by poet Tom Healy “I use my body as an object of commerce.”
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