QUOTAGE!

I myself can look at almost any hemline, silhouette, beadwork, or heel architecture and tell you very precisely who designed it first, what French painter they stole it from, and how many designers reinvented it after them, and what cultural and musical movement parented the birth, death, and resurrection of that particular trend. So dear critics and bullies: get your library cards out, because I’m about to do a reading.

As someone who references and annotates her work vigilantly, I am putting all of you on notice. I’ve done my homework, have you?

I have a passionate understanding of the history of many of the references that not only I have reinspired, but have been reinterpreted over centuries of fashion: where they came from, what they meant, and specifically how they became modern again. I have concurrently shows that I could “read you” in this subject, but I would rather reckon with the fact that many are clinging tightly to culture divisiveness and leaving home without library cards.

Just like sometimes Picasso was Matisse’s Mondrian, and vice versa. Bowie is often my Mondrian, as are Michael Jackson, Prince, Lita Ford, and Madonna. Mugler is my silhouette’s Mondrian, Cindy Crawford is my sexuality’s, Kermit is my whimsy’s, and, in my “Born This Way” video, two of my Mondrians were Francis Bacon and Slavdor Dali. In a lot of ways, the “idea” of being obsessed with art is my Mondrian. Just like Campbell’s Tomato Soup was Warhol’s Mondrian, and Marilyn Monro and Maripol were Madonna’s. I am obsesed with all the authors in the library of pop culture.

I am an obsessed pop cultural expert. And perhaps, between my music, performance art, and this column, I will be remembered as such.

-Erm, right, a piece of Lady Gaga's new column for V magazine. Yawns-ville. Does anyone give a shit? Not to mention the amount of typos in this thing, I know I'm one to talk - but I left all the typos in so you could see them. I hope it wasn't printed in that state. Seriously! What sub editor would let that in!