Jay-Z Is Doing a Performance Art Piece at Pace Gallery in NYC Right Now

Jay-Z is performing at an art gallery in NYC. #factsonly

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Image via Complex Original
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Jay-Z's new album campaign for Magna Carta Holy Grail is all about #newrules, and apparently, it's also about trying new art mediums. Right now, he's doing a performance art piece for six hours at Pace Gallery in New York, where he's rapping "Picasso Baby," which will supposedly culminate in a music video for the song. This is definitely one of the "6 pieces of art" he was referring to on Twitter the other day, during his random answering spree, where he confirmed that he's been working on new videos for the album.

This isn't the first time Jay-Z's shown how much he understands the power of repetition and endurance in both hip-hop and art. During the Watch the Throne tour with Kanye West, he and 'Ye performed the Hit-Boy-produced "N***as in Paris" up to 12 times for audiences all over the world, making it clear to fans that they were breaking records doing so.

Maybe Jay was inspired by the The National performing their song "The Sorrow" for six hours straight in early May at MoMA PS1, and maybe he's taking a lesson from Marina Abramović, the most famous contemporary performance artist, whose The Artist is Present installation had her sitting in the MoMA across from visitors for a minute at a time during her spring 2010 retrospective (Turns out, he is, because she came to perform with him...footage here). Regardless, he's consciously going in a new direction, and instead of just rapping about visual art and the art world, he's making a decisive effort to be a part of it beyond as a collector.

Watch multiple Vines of the performance in the following slides.

RELATED: Jay-Z Is Rapping To Marina Abramovic at Pace Gallery
RELATED: Breaking Down The Art References on Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail
RELATED: Jay-Z's Album Art for Magna Carta Holy Grail Comes from This Sculpture  

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