Stacy Keibler poses naked - but it's for art

lelacorb wrote:SOCIM, no doubt, is definitely a title for a book vulgar vernacular. It 'best not to bother because the art is not art!

cindigirl wrote:It's on for two hours tonight. socimar, do you know the lineup for Eli?

From: Wall St Journal

Women Get Behind Artist's Project

By MARSHALL HEYMAN

It's not every day that we celebrate a woman's posterior, so perhaps that's why so many people came out for the launch of "Culo by Mazzucco" late Sunday night at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in West Chelsea. It could have also had to do with the popularity of the hosts, Sean "Diddy" Combs and Jimmy Iovine, who are considered the executive editors of a book that accompanies a traveling art exhibition with work by Canadian photographer Raphael Mazzucco.

But, then, perhaps we are underestimating the draw of slightly scandalous yet tastefully done nude-from-behind images of many gorgeous female models, some obscure and some notable, including the pop singer Fergie, the former professional wrestler Stacy Keibler ("she's George Clooney's girlfriend," said Mr. Mazzucco), the model/actress Pamela Anderson, the musician Sarah McLachlan and Paris Hilton.

The project, Mr. Iovine said, originated from one of his recording artists, Will.i.am. "He came in and said, 'Hey, I want a million dollars for my video.' He went to Brazil and came back with hours and hours of footage of girls shot from behind. I said, 'This ain't a video, but it's a great coffee table book.'"

Mr. Iovine had met Mr. Mazzucco, who had done some photography of Fergie, and thought he'd like to do a project with him. "I asked him, 'Can you make this interesting?'" Mr. Mazzucco said he could.

As a side note, Mr. Iovine, the chairman of Interscope, has lately tried to expand into new products, like Beats headphones with Dr. Dre. "We don't want to make just music and records," he said. The art work is "for sale, absolutely. It's a business venture."

"When you have an entertainment company, sometimes you reflect popular culture, sometimes you magnify it, and sometimes you create it," Mr. Iovine went on. "These sneaker companies tell you if you wear certain shoes, they will help you tone your rear end. This project just kind of points a mirror. It doesn't have anything to do with a woman's body. This could have been a photo exhibit about giraffes. It's a representation of what's going on in popular culture."

Perhaps Will I.Am distills the point best in an introduction to the book, which will be published next month. The video he made in Brazil "made us realize that fashion needs fewer girls who look like boys and more women with some 'boom boom pow.'"

In images titled "Earth Woman," "New Moon," "Red Lust," and "After Glow," there was plenty of "boom," even more of that "boom," and some additional "pow." Mr. Mazzucco, who lives in Montauk with his wife, Lisa-Marie, and their 17-year-old son, said he photographed 70 women over two years in various locations. He went to Africa, Iceland, Vietnam, London, Milan and Chile. He mixed various media, including tempura paint, tea bags and leaves from nearby trees.

"We never really knew how long the whole project was going to take," the photographer said. "No one was forced to have deadlines. If something didn't work, we would just go in another direction." Mr. Iovine, he explained, "would carefully go over the photo selects."

Mr. Combs, who declined requests for interviews, was more of the "creative director," added Mr. Mazzucco. "He said it should have beautiful colors and storytelling. Jimmy would send me songs. Diddy might say, 'Think of the color blue.'"

The book itself features additional adulatory quotes from the writers Vickie Stringer and Susan Fales-Hill ("Whether yours is large or small, rounded or flat, flaunt it, embrace it, cherish it.") as well as epigrams from the recording artist Adam Levine of Maroon 5. The R&B singer Robin Thicke writes, "I live to lie in the shadows of a culo in bloom."

Ron Burkle, Brent Bolthouse and Dylan McDermott, who shows quite a bit of his own unclothed culo on the new F/X series "American Horror Story" were just some of the folks who showed up at the after-party at the Darby, sponsored by Beau Joie Champagne. With this crowd, there was quite a lot of rump-shaking. But Mr. Mazzucco didn't have his camera out.

"I just think the whole process of the project is to give positive energy," he said. " I don't want to think of myself as a tortured artist."