She likes little pictures of butts and she cannot lie.
A Crown Heights artist has painted 42 bite-sized portraits of celebrities’ rear ends for her one-woman art show “A View of the End,” which she will launch at Williamsburg erotic boutique Shag tonight.
The exterior-centric exhibit is a critique of our celebrity-obsessed society, the dainty derriere depicter said. Viewers must get very close to see the tiny tushies, forcing them to ogle the keisters like a paparazzo, she said.
“They hopefully get the viewer to become conscious of the ways that they follow their own voyeuristic tendencies,” said artist Catalina Viejo Lopez de Roda.
Lopez de Roda based all the posterior paintings off photos she found in celebrity magazines. She changed the backgrounds, but left the glutei maximi untouched. She deliberately selected images that were taken unflattering or awkward angles, which she said offer a different perspective on the stars depicted.
“It is as far away from the brand of their face as you can get,” said Lopez de Roda. “It is literally showing you the backside of fame.”
Famous patooties in the exhibition include those owned by Rihanna, Salma Hayek, and Kesha. Lopez de Roda uses only the stars’ first names to identify the paintings, which means visitors to “A View of the End” will be presented with an array of fannies titled “Jennifer.”
“I like watching people try to figure out which Jennifer is which,” she said.
Lopez de Roda included two male money-makers in the show — those of Matthew McConaughey and David Beckham, whose bodies she said the media and public fetishize in the same way as female starlets.
She also created a book of prints and interviews with art historians to accompany the exhibit. In it, she asked the art buffs to name their favorite cheeks on canvas, which included Yoko Ono’s own celebrity can celebration “Four” and the bronzed booty of Donatello’s “David.”
“You have got to have a sense of humor if you are going to respond to a question like that,” she said.
“A View of the End” at Shag [108 Roebling St. between N. Fifth and N. Sixth streets in Williamsburg, shop.welov
Can you name celebrities based only on paintings of their butts? Take our quiz to find out!
