Picasso Baby, The Art Culture revolution

Hip Hop has been on an ongoing evolution since it’s commercial rise in the 80s. Birthed between a Rock and a Hard place in a dark alley where, consequently, a rose grew from a crack in the concrete, Hip Hop became a steam-roll culture collecting and growing on the minds of American youth. Inspired by Toasts, not unlike Signifying Monkey by Rudy Ray Moore, Hip Hop spawned the MC who evolved into today’s Rapper. Among them we have one of the most successful and arguably the most skilled, Jay Z.

Hov is most definitely the Face of Hip Hop right now. Magna Carta Holy Grail, his latest album to take the hearts of hip-hop heads across the nation, is a piece of Art. A collective Audio of Neo-Expressionist-Confessional-Poetry-Hip-hop-Futuristic-George-Jetson-$#*! (its pretty good, is all I’m saying) is a story on his constant struggle with Fame, Money and his upbringing from the streets- a completely different life and view from his current one, that inspired his music.

A struggle that parallels the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat.  If you’ve been paying attention, Basquiat has been getting major mentions in the hip hop world, by some artist Like Jay Z, J. Cole, and Frank Ocean. The reason being is that his art was defiant. It stood in galleries pointing to struggles of interest to Basquiat, “brash, violent and gritty primitivist portraits of urban black life” much like the music does today. It was an effort to alert the world that things are not ok in the world, it needs our attention.

As for Picasso Baby, What makes this Art? A question necessary to verify whether something truly is worthy of being deemed art and therefor admired as such.

Abbe Batteaux, A French thinker, argued in the 1740s that one of the reasons we flock to modern forms of art is because they “Caused in the audience certain mental states which they can enjoy for their own sake.” Immanuel Kant went on to argue the properties and characteristics of Aesthetic beauty In his third book The Critique of Judgments, to spare you the run around, it was mostly arguing over a universal versus an individual Idea of beauty. Then came Marcel Duchamp’s Ready Mades, where he took ordinary objects and put them in galleries and called them art. Most famous for his Porcelain Urinal, He pretty much challenged all past concepts of art and it’s definition. Although the Art world reveled in it’s new transformation, as it always seems to do so, and engaged in new art practices, we are left with a very loose idea and definition of what art really is. Photography, Videos, Music, Paintings, Sculptures, all bring us -in one way or another- Pleasure. Pleasure, which to this day can still be a driving factor in the argument of art, is with out a doubt what brings us to Art of all kinds, Music and performance art in this particular case.

Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film is a revolution of art, much Like Duchamp’s Urinal. Here is Hov, Performing for six hours in an attempt to reunite these two worlds of expression, these “Cousins” as he puts it. And while he does so, people are invited to sit in front of him in the area of the performance. No doubt tons of artists show up and do renditions of their art, which is inspiring in its own act. Performance artist, singers, dancers and quirky characters of all sorts make it out and perform along side the MC. The short film is a tribute to the human need of and curiosity with art. To often in the video we see the facial expression of fans who are excited merely to be in Jay’s presence, who watch, listen, and in some cases rap along with him. The understanding of his musical expression, the comfort his presence brings and the enjoyment of his bravado, that’s why this is Art.  The fact that Jay Z inspired artist to perform alongside himself, is why this is art.

It was just as much about the people in the video as it was the song, it was a piece that involved the onlooker more than they are aware of. The six hour performance piece was an acknowledgement to the artist in all of us, the work of art that is the human spirit.