How Iggy Pop incorporates art into his stage persona
Art has romanticised the human body for hundreds and thousands of years. Many paintings that have made the biggest impact on the art world are representations of the human form. Take, for example, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, or Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam; it’s clear there’s an affinity for such spectacles in the history of art. Given the taboo often associated with such notions in music, however, how do certain icons of rock, like Iggy Pop, come to exercise such artistry in their own stage personas?
When it comes to music, art has intersected by influencing some of the greats. For many musicians, art represents a chance for an avenue of expression outside of song. David Bowie, for one, famously declared that he “[worked] through musical problems by painting them out,” and Patti Smith said that art in all its guises offers her escape, saying, “In art and dream, may you proceed with abandon. In life, may you proceed with balance and stealth”.
For Iggy Pop, art provides an aesthetic that can be carried over into the music world. In fact, Pop established a persona from early on that centres around notions of the human body, particularly the way it “flows”, as seen during live performances and images that depict him without a shirt on. In his eyes, his allure has always been the way he uses his body.
“I use my body as an object of commerce,” Pop once said to the artist Jeremy Deller. The idea of showing off his torso came to Pop’s mind when he once saw how ancient Pharaohs were depicted. “I saw the Pharaohs with no shirts and I thought, ‘It just looks so classic. I have a long torso. I could do that.’” The Egyptians regarded pharaohs as possessing both human and divine attributes. In essence, Pop aimed to infuse his persona with a semblance of a demigod-like aura.
This is something that captured the mind of Deller, who deemed Pop “an ancient, mythological figure, but in contemporary form”. In a bid to capture Pop’s legacy of reshaping boundaries pertaining to bodily restraint, Deller showcased an exhibition back in 2016 called Iggy Pop Life Class, which included 107 interpretations of the star’s nude physique by 22 artists. The museum also paired their work with objects and artifacts depicting the male figure over the last few centuries, such as sculptures from ancient Egypt, Africa and India, and drawings by artists such as Egon Schiele and Max Beckmann.
Deller first approached Pop ten years prior, however, but he expressed reluctance at the time due to his age and physical appearance. “I thought I didn’t have the weight,” Pop said in the book that accompanied the art exhibition. “Now I feel like a lot has happened with and to my body. For some reason, it felt important for me to just stand naked for a group of human beings and have an exchange.”
The culmination of art and music worlds, and even extending to cinematic landscapes, captures a stoic yet stunning depiction of physical antiquity, exercising notions of nudity and beauty and how this can be showcased through various forms. Pop’s seemingly daring presence may have alarmed some at first, but in his attempt at reviving more archaic realms, he succeeds in challenging the modern Puritan attitude towards the body as a spectacle.
