A lust for life drawing (or, Iggy Pop takes his clothes off, again)

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories.

Poor old Iggy Pop. Even after four decades of wild performances, countless album sales and a widely acknowledged status as the ‘godfather of punk’, it seems people are still out to objectify him. ‘I think of Iggy as this beautiful, grizzled piece of art,’ Pop’s current producer Josh Homme recently opined, ‘my job was to put it back in the right frame. Sometimes, to do that, you have to push.’

Alas, it seems Iggy has taken Homme’s perplexing analogy a bit too literally. According to The Guardian, he has been spending his days off posing nude at a life-drawing class in New York. The results of the class – some 20 drawings of Iggy in the buff – will be shown at the Brooklyn Museum this autumn as part of a project conceived by serial quirkster Jeremy Deller.

Elena Olivo/Brooklyn Museum

‘For me it makes perfect sense for Iggy Pop to be the subject of a life class; his body is central to an understanding of rock music and its place within American culture,’ Deller explains, sounding worryingly like a mortician. ‘His body has witnessed much and should be documented.’

Quite how much insight into American culture one can derive from studying the 68-year-old rocker’s private parts is open to debate. But it does at least serve as a warning to other ageing punk wild men: stick to advertising car insurance, or you too will end up being mistaken for kooky BritArt.

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