Jay Z once held the praise and support of iconic performance artist Marina Abramovic, but now the art world icon is bashing Jay, saying that he stiffed her when it came supporting her business.
As fans may remember, Abramovic appeared in Jay’s star-studded “Picasso Baby” video, in which Jay, who was inspired by Abramovic’s “The Artist Is Present” piece, and rapped face-to-face with fans and stars alike for six hours in New York City’s Pace Gallery.
In a new interview with Spike, Abramovic claims that she allowed Jay to use her work in exchange for support for her Marina Abramovic Institute. However, she says that Jay never lived up to his end of the bargain.
“The day before, he came to my office and I gave him an entire PowerPoint presentation and said: OK, you can help me, because I really need help to build this thing. Then he just completely used me. And that wasn’t fair,” she said.
Abramovic says she doesn’t regret working with Jay, but she says she will never work with him again.
“And in the end it was only a one-way transaction. I will never do it again, that I can say. Never. I was really naive in this kind of world. It was really new to me, and I had no idea that this would happen. It’s so cruel, it’s incredible. I will stay away from it for sure,” she said.
Jay has yet to respond to the allegations, but like everyone else, we’re interested to see what he has to say.
