Lessons in life drawing with Iggy Pop
When artists search for life models, they’re looking for a diversity of them to sharpen their skills. Proportion, shading and scale are tested when put in front of different subjects, and although the “model” tag might conjure up Kate Winslet-esque scenes of painting someone like a French girl, you don’t have to be beautiful – or French – to do it. Enter Iggy Pop.
His long-suffering body turned out to be the perfect muse in the Iggy Pop Life Class by Jeremy Deller. In a strange crossover of art and music in 2016, British-based artist Deller sat Pop in front of 22 students for four hours as they got to work capturing him from life. In a lot of ways, it was a genius move. Pop’s body, which was cut up and flung off stages during the peak hysteria of the Stooges years, is fascinating on a very compositional level.
Where you might look at the scars on his chest and think, ‘Christ, was slicing an X into yourself at the Murder of a Virgin show really necessary?’ someone tasked with drawing it might be asking more practical and wonder how best to shade it. Pop could also never be accused of being shy and retiring. If he was content to flash on stage, sitting naked for some art students probably barely registered, given the tally of wild moments he’s managed to rack up.
That said, he was initially hesitant, and it took ten years for Deller’s idea to come to life. When Pop was first approached with the idea, he turned it down. When he finally agreed, he said he was drawn to the Brooklyn Museum’s “proletarian roots”, having grown up in working-class Detroit. The spirit of the art class had a fittingly DIY punk ethos for Pop, including a wide range of art students, some of whom had never done a life drawing class before.
The class itself was a practical study of life drawing and a performance all in one, the latter owing entirely to their model. As Deller pointed out ahead of the show, Pop has one of the most recognisable bodies in popular culture.
“A body that is key to an understanding of rock music and that has been paraded, celebrated, and scrutinised through the years in a way that is unusual for a man,” he said. “It is also fair to say that it has witnessed a lot. It was for these reasons that I wanted him to sit for a life class.”
The sketches also showcased how truly famous Pop is. Silhouettes done in five minutes are unmistakably him, down to the thinning long hair and slightly arched back. They’re also something unmistakably beautiful about Pop, drawn at 69, basking in his own body in total confidence.
