Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence is the subject of W magazine’s current art issue.
In 2006, the fashion-focused publication launched this collaborative series with fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti shooting contemporary American artist Richard Tuttle. Since then, there have been many examples of collaborations between high-profile artists and celebrities, for example, Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch directing a shoot starring Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid in 2016, Mickalene Thomas photographing Cardi B. in 2018, and Robert Longo shooting Nicole Kidman as one of his “men” in the city last year.
This year’s iteration features Lawrence in a three-part collaboration with French filmmaker and artist Philippe Parreno, American painter Elizabeth Peyton, and German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans.
Parreno shot a short film starring Lawrence. In one scene, the actress stares intensely at the camera, silently depicting a range of emotions as prompted by Parreno—inner turmoil, calm, anxiety, joy, and sorrow. Towards the end of the clip, she turns away, leaving her shoulders and back square to the camera. The parting image brings to mind Gerhard Richter’s famous portrait of his daughter, Betty (1988), which is itself a reference to Ingres’s The Bather at Valpinçon (1808).
Tillmans, for his part, photographed Lawrence at his London studio, wearing a black T-shirt shirt bearing the title of his recent exhibition at the Centre Pompidou: “Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us.”
Lastly, Lawrence sat for a portrait by Peyton, painted in the artist’s recognizably loose, romantic style.
The art issue has three different covers of the actress, with one dedicated to the work of each collaborating artist.
In the accompanying article, Lawrence spoke passionately about the artists with whom she worked: The dialogue Parreno wrote for his film was “almost Ang Lee–like”, while Peyton is “so much smarter than me in every conceivable way.”
Lawrence’s new film, Die, My Love, which co-starts Robert Pattison and is based on a novel by Ariana Harwicz, was released in theaters on November 7.
