By Tony Bennett may be a musician who survived World War II as a U.S. Army infantryman, but he just may not live through his comparison of multitalented Lady Gaga to Cubist mover and shaker Pablo Picasso. #toosoon
“I’m starstruck over Lady Gaga right now,” Bennett said on VH1’s “Big Morning Buzz Live” last week. “She’s fabulous. I think she’s going to be America’s Picasso.”
Art is a cycle. It takes inspiration to create, and it creates inspiration. However, art is arguably never original. I’m sure this statement has been said more than once.
Lady Gaga even said in a V Magazine interview last May that “Picasso said, ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal.'”
The 25-year-old singer-songwriter is spectacular, but she’s nothing new. In terms of artistic rackets, I’d say she’s more like a James Franco. In terms of looks, she’s a reproduction of the late magazine editor Isabella Blow, musician Debbie Harry and comedian Carol Burnett. In fact, Lady Gaga has been on SNL, which means she’s dabbled in comedy herself.
So Mr. B, before crooning and going gaga over the Fame Monster as the Cubism co-founder, get your analogies straight! Picasso did paint the “Three Musicians” (1921), and Lady Gaga wore cubes on her telephone hat, but it doesn’t mean each artist should take over one another’s title. Both their creations are worth millions, but it doesn’t mean they’re exactly comparable. This is no Watch the Throne!
Lady Gaga showed up at the 2010 MTV Music Video Awards in a Jeremy Scott meat dress, and she’s a performance artist. Marina AbramoviÄc showed up naked at a recent Museum of Contemporary Art gala, and she’s a performance artist. Paula Deen slabs some butter onto a home cooked meal, and she’s technically a performance artist. They are all performance artists in their own right, and that’s just one of their respective titles.
