Jay Z just got one-upped by the reigning queen of pop.
The rap czar’s hip-hop spin on Marina Abramovic’s performance art project “The Artist Is Present,” which saw him spitting the Magna Carta Holy Grail track “Picasso Baby” for six hours straight at a posh Manhattan art gallery, was a viral sensation. The stunt even included a little dance with Abramovic herself and aired as an HBO special this past Sunday. But now Lady Gaga has gone, in the words of Jay Z, all kinds of H.A.M.—getting naked and engaging in the “Abramovic Method,” which describes itself as “a series of exercises designed to heighten participants’ awareness of their physical and mental experience in the present moment.”
In the video, Gaga can be seen posing naked in a forest, pressing crystals against her naked body, and yelling.
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Gaga partook in the Abramovic method under the instruction of Abramovic herself during a three-day retreat at the Marina Abramovic Institute in upstate New York. The institute describes itself as “the first space dedicated to practicing the Abramovic method, which prepares participants to both perform and observe long durational work.”
It all makes sense, considering Gaga’s upcoming album is called ARTPOP and is scheduled for a November 11 release. Plus, Gaga and Abramovic have some history. Earlier this month, the pop diva took part in a marathon reading of the 1961 sci-fi novel Solaris as part of a fundraising event for the Marina Abramovic Institute, and the two also hung out together at a benefit in the Hamptons in late July.
You can donate to the Marina Abramovic Institute via its Kickstarter page.
