A video at the Metropolitan Museum to launch the new album. Halsey's initiative

A 13-minute video at New York ’s Metropolitan Museum to unveil the cover of her new album If I can’t have love, I want power: the initiative is by popular indie pop singer Halsey (real name Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, U.S. born 1994). The video is nothing more and nothing less than a walk of the 26-year-old singer in the New York museum: wearing only a light silver and ochre dress that leaves her belly exposed (Halsey was in fact pregnant at the time of filming), the musician walks through the halls of European art lingering in front of some paintings and sculptures.

First capturing Halsey’s attention is Guido Reni’s Charity, then we look in succession at Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Madonna Stoclet, and then again at the polyptych with the Madonna and Child and Saints by Giovanni di Paolo, a glazed terracotta Madonna and Child by Luca della Robbia, and Artemisia Gentileschi’s Esther and Ahasuerus. These are mostly maternity scenes (and generally all centered on women): their son, Ender Ridley Aydin, fathered by Turkish screenwriter Alev Aydin, was born on July 14, a week after the video was released. At the end, Halsey lingers in front of the museum’s main staircase, where she unveils a monumental-scale photograph of the album cover, namely a photograph of herself holding a baby: the singer is seated on a golden throne, wearing a blue dress and a golden crown, as she shows herself to the viewer with an uncovered breast and the baby resting on her lap, in an open quotation of the Melun diptych, a masterpiece by Jean Fouquet preserved in Antwerp. The photograph is a work by Lucas Garrido.

“This album,” Halsey wrote at the video launch, “is a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and birth. It was very important to me that the cover reflects the feelings of my journey over the past few months. The dichotomy of the Madonna and the harlot. The idea of myself as a sexual being and my body as a vessel and a gift for my child are two concepts that coexist peacefully and powerfully. My body has belonged to the world in many different ways over the past years, and this cover is my means of claiming my autonomy and establishing my pride and strength as a life force for my human being. This cover image celebrates pregnant and postpartum bodies as something beautiful, to be admired. We have a long way to go to eradicate the social stigma around bodies and breastfeeding. I hope this can be a step in the right direction!”

The video has been well received by audiences and critics because it represents a novel operation for the world of music: this time, in fact, the museum works are not a backdrop or a setting, but are the protagonists, also because the footage is devoid of music (the noises are those of the environments). The film can be seen on YouTube.

A video at the Metropolitan Museum to launch the new album. Halsey's initiative

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