Lady Gaga, “ARTPOP”
Lady Gaga, ARTPOP (2013)
Interscope Records
Designer: Jeff Koons
“One second I’m a Koons then suddenly the Koons is me…”
The artwork for Lady Gaga’s third studio album, ARTPOP, combines Sandro Botecelli’s famous Birth of Venus painting, broken typography, and a life size sculpture of Lady Gaga created by American artist Jeff Koons. The sculpture includes a nude Gaga with a giant, blue ball sitting in front of her.
Of the cover, Koons told MTV:
“I wanted to have Gaga there as a sculpture, as a three-dimensional type of form and with the gazing ball, because the gazing ball really does become kind of the symbol for everything — and this aspect of reflection that when you come across something like a gazing ball, it affirms you, it affirms your existence and then from that affirmation, you start to want more.”
The first 500,000 copies of the album included “LADY GAGA” and “ARTPOP” cut out in metallic hot pink foil, as part of Koon’s original vision. In addition to the album, a mobile app was released to access bonus content created by the Haus of Gaga.
ARTPOP was released in November 2013, preceded by the singles “Applause” and “Do What U Want.”
