Bon vivant, artiste and husband to this (literally) glittering babe, Jay-Z, has spent six hours performing Picasso Baby from his album Magna Carta Holy Grail at the Pace Gallery in New York City. It’s a stunt that seems to copy The National‘s performance art verbatim—when they played their track Sorrow for six hours straight at MoMA’s PS1—though Jay-Z’s six hour rap battle was decidedly less fucking depressing.
The footage captured from the event will eventually be collated to be the official music video for Picasso Baby, featuring a select group of creatives and friends that were invited to the event including: Judd Apatow, Girls’ actor Adam Driver, Marina Ambramovic and Lena Dunham’s mum:
I wish I could tell you why my mom is with Jay-Z right now.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) July 10, 2013
Inspiration must have been taken from Marina Ambramovic’s iconic performance art piece “The Artist Is Present”—in which she sat opposite and stared at gallery goers in silence, nearly always reducing them to tears—as it looks like Jay-Z selected individual audience members from the crowd to be awkwardly serenaded:
And here’s Maria Amberovic herself with Jay-Z; despite witchy presence, she provokes no tears:
Some more highlights of the footage that was meant to be kept a secret, but obviously leaked like crazy:
Woman appears to be trolling Jay-Z:
A dance-off ensues:
Gets intimate with the crowd:
And someone tries to out-sing Jay-Z as he takes a breather:
