Jay-Z Performance Art Piece of "Picasso Baby" for Six Hours Straight
Rapper Jay-Z performed his new song "Picasso Baby" off of Magna Carta Holy Grail at New York's Pace Gallery over and over for six hours.
Yahoo reports the footage will be used for a new music video directed by Mark Romanek, who worked on Jay-Z's "99 Problems" video.
His performance began at 1 p.m. on Wednesday where people were able to watch him at hour intervals throughout the day.
Performance artist Marina Abramovic was a special guest and at one point danced around the rapper and her head against his. The whole event was reportedly inspired by her 2010 exhibition at MoMA where she sat at a table for seven-and-a half hours a day for three months in "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present.
The 43-year-old rap mogul has being getting in touch with his artistic side as debuted his artwork for the new album in a cathedral.
Jay-Z premiered the cover artwork for Magna Carta Holy Grail at The Salisbury Cathedral in England, U.K. One of the four original Magna Carta documents that served as a charter for the king of England in 1215 is displayed in the same room as the rapper's album's cover art, The Smoking Section reports.
The publication states that Jay-Z will keep the cover art in the cathedral until the end of July.
Jay-Z's last project Watch the Throne with Kanye West was released in the summer of 2011 and went on to sell 1,445,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. His last solo album The Blueprint 3 was released in Sept. of 2009 and has sold almost 2 million copies. That album featured some of the same producers who appear on Magna Carta Holy Grail.