Beyoncé arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating “China: Through the Looking Glass” on May 4, 2015, in New York.
(AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
From a quiet start to cultural dominance, Beyoncé’s work over the last decade is groundbreaking. But it is also filled with questions and contradictions.
The history of recorded music has been marked by endless artistic and technological changes. While music labels persist, digital technology has profoundly altered why they exist and how they work.
In 1997 Pippilotti Rist walked down a street of cars and smashed their windows in a vivaciously feminist call to arms. You might recognise the homage to Risk’s work in Beyoncé’s Lemonade.
Beyoncé in the music video for Sorry, from Lemonade.
Screenshot from Youtube
From The Smiths to Kendrick Lamar, Conversation readers tell us their favourite albums.
Jay Z, Beyoncé and daughter Blue Ivy sit court side at a basketball game in New Orleans in Feb. 2017. Jay Z opened up about his relationship with Beyoncé on his new album, “4:44.”
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
The singer has been criticised for ‘fetishising’ motherhood. But by disrupting stereotypes she is striking a major blow for black women.
The emotional and physical experiences of fatigue, stress, anxiety, and isolation are almost never seen in the popular images of pregnancy.
reebob/flickr
Unlike Beyoncé, a group of Australian women documenting their own pregnancies captured mundane images of track pants, barren wardrobes and self-portraits in a bathroom mirror.
When a celebrity runs for president, do celebrity endorsements matter? A survey of likely voters shows how tricky it can be to mix celebrity and politics.
The MTV music video awards will be held on Sunday, putting this under-rated genre in the spotlight. Videos are inseparable from music in the digital age and the best examples deserve to be taken seriously as works of art.
Hip hop is starting to be used in schools and in the community in creative and diverse ways.
Beyonce’s baseball bat wielding spree in Lemonade, left, bears more than a passing resemblance to the work of Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist.
Left, still from Lemonade (2016), right, still from Ever is Over All (1997)
From Beyoncé and Lady Gaga to Kanye and even Rihanna, pop royalty is crazy for high art. Is this a phenomenon worth celebrating or are pop stars mining the art world to gain credibility?
Beyonce performing at the Super Bowl.
Larry W. Smith/EPA
Why must women’s art be seen as autobiographical when we readily accept the idea of male auteurs spinning fictionalised yarns? In her much analysed video and album Lemonade, Beyoncé may be playing make believe.