Rosalía is on the crest of the wave. This Wednesday, the Catalan begins her Motomami tour in Almería and there are many who have once again put the focus on the artist and her new work. Since she released her latest album and featured it on TikTok, fans, critics, and analysts have spoken about different aspects surrounding her latest songs. But not only musically. The audiovisual also gains great strength as was the case previously with El mal querer. This is how the art historian Clara González makes it known in a thread that she shared on her Twitter account and that she has explained in more detail to La Vanguardia.
González focused on the cover of the artist's third album, criticized at the time by some for showing herself nude. The art historian, on the other hand, highlights the work behind that image, because where some saw vulgarity, she sees The Birth of Venus by Botticelli. "From the beginning I saw clearly that the pose could remember a lot," she assures this medium. The truth is that, if compared to the original painting, the singer adopts the same position of the hands and even leans slightly to the right.
But, beyond the artistic reference, González assures that the photograph already makes clear what is going to be heard on the CD before even hearing it: urban music. “Mainly I see a relationship because of the logo on the cover, which is made using a stencil. This technique is very typical within urban art, in fact it is the one used by Banksy, and it consists of the use of templates with designs on which the paint is applied”, he explains to La Vanguardia.
In her thread, the art historian sees another wink, although this one, she admits, is not sure if it is a coincidence or if it was done on purpose. It is a photograph that she uploaded a few weeks ago to her Instagram account @holamotomami, which she created expressly to talk about the creative process of her new album. There she posted a photograph of Basquiat's Arroz con pollo. González believes that she could have something to do with the single that came out some time later called Chicken Teriyaki. "It seemed to me that, by name, it could be related," she insists. In addition, it is "the first publication of the account".
It should be said that the Twitter thread has caused so much fury that González has been forced to silence it. However, the motivation of her followers has brought her new comparisons that she herself had not seen. For example, she advances, “people let me know that in Candy's video clip, which I hadn't had the chance to see yet, several scenes from Lost in Translation were practically emulated”.
Thus, in addition to famous canvases, the artist would also be paying homage in a certain way to the seventh art and to Japan, a country with which she has always admitted to being in love and from which, on more than one occasion, she has been inspired for some of her looks.
Another reference, this time a cinephile, is found in the video clip of La Fama, a song that the Catalan singer sings with The Weekend and that, as González recalls, "is inspired by Salma Hayek's dance scene in Abierto til Dawn".
Regarding whether or not there will be more nods to the world of art and culture, González is convinced that there will be, although she asks for patience, because "we will have to wait for the artist to release more content to find out." However, she will be aware to warn the most curious if this happens again. Meanwhile, she satisfies them with the analysis that she once did on El mal querer, which also began with a cover with a "direct reference to the iconography of the Immaculate Conception, with the typical crown of stars and the dove representing the Holy Spirit". In addition, "the covers of the singles give proof of this, they are very direct allusions to real works of art and that they are related to the songs they represent", she concludes.
