On July 29, 2022, when Beyoncé released “Renaissance,” the first of what she envisions as a three-act magnum opus (the second act, “Cowboy Carter,” was released in March), audiences were exhausted after two years and a half. years of pandemic restrictions and unprecedented changes to their daily routines. They were crazy and eager to get on the dance floor. Beyoncé embraced the sounds of house music pioneered by black and queer DJs, as well as the subversive, glossy style of ballroom culture. The singer appears on the album cover in a silver rope dress designed by Nusi Quero, sitting astride a horse covered in mirrors. The image was taken by Carlijn Jacobs, a Dutch fashion photographer interested in the art of masquerade and maximalist glamour, and alludes to both rodeo and royalty. He also evokes various artistic references, including the painting by Kehinde Wiley “Equestrian portrait of Isabelle de Bourbon» (2016); Photos of Rose Hartman Bianca Jagger on a white horse at Studio 54 in 1977; And 1890s painting by John Collier of Lady Godiva, the 11th-century Englishwoman is said to have ridden her horse naked through the streets in protest. — BE
Velam: Does anyone else feel like we’re missing a moment of pop culture fame? If we’re talking about images that are going around everywhere and that everyone in the middle of the country is going to look at, I don’t think we have that.
Douglas: I think it’s important to include the idea of celebrity culture in photography. I’m not sure what that would be.
THE : There is the photo (2017) of Beyoncé pregnant with all the flowers.
Miller: Initially, Shikeith also chose Beyoncé the album cover from “Dangerously in Love” (2003).
Marcoci: But sorry, why not just pick a (Richard) Avedon from a celebrity?
Velam: Marilyn Monroe (from 1957). But don’t we feel like we have a lot of photographs from the past? Don’t we want to think about what fame is today?
Miller: What is the iconic pop culture image of the last five years?
Douglas: Is there an image of Kardashian?
Velam: I can’t, because I hate them so much. But yes, you want the thing of (Kim Kardashian) when she broke the Internet with her butt (an image that was broadcast on the cover of Paper magazine in 2014).
Douglas: I come back to Beyoncé, because (you want) the image of a celebrity who is not a person but an image. It looks like something of a simulacrum.
Velam: With its “Renaissance” cover, it was plastered everywhere. It was all over the city.
Douglas: I would buy this.
Shikeith: I think it’s very important that she released this album and highlighted Black Queer contributions to music in the culture because so often those same contributions are erased or attributed to someone else. Especially in pop culture.
Marcoci: Can you hold it on your phone?
Velam: Yeah. I listen to it all the time.
Top: Gordon Parks, “Department Store, Mobile, Alabama” (1956) © the Gordon Parks Foundation; NASA/William A. Anders, “Earthrise” (1968); Alberto Korda, “Guerrillero Heroico (Che Guevara)” (1960) © Alberto Korda, courtesy of the Alberto Korda Estate; Stuart Franklin, an unidentified man blocking a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square (1989) © Stuart Franklin/Magnum Photos; Deana Lawson, “Nation” (2018) © Deana Lawson, courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery; LaToya Ruby Frazier, “United Auto Workers and Their Families Hold Drive It Home Campaign Signs in Front of UAW Local 1112 Reuther Scandy Alli Union Hall, Lordstown, OH, 2019,” from the “The Last Cruze” series (2019) © LaToya Ruby Frazier, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery