Video Portrait

According to the New York Daily News, Johnny Depp participated in the VOOM video portraiture project with artist Robert Wilson. Wilson’s work, commissioned by the VOOM HD networks, will go on exhibition this week and run through mid-February at the Phillips de Pury Gallery (450 W. 15th St.) and the Paula Cooper Gallery (534 W. 21st St.) in New York.
Information on the exhibit and a preview of the Brad Pitt video portrait can be found on the VOOMtv web site.

When Johnny Depp agreed to be his subject, Wilson stared at a photo of Depp and decided to put him in the costume and makeup of an alter-ego imagined by avant-garde pioneer Marcel Duchamp, “Rose Selavy.” Depp is barely recognizable in Rose’s extravagant getup.

“He was very open to it,” Wilson says. “It didn’t take long to finish. He was amazed: ‘’You don’t want me to come back tomorrow?’”

Also commonly spelled Rrose Selavy, the character is the alter-ego of Marcel Duchamp and was famously photographed by Man Ray in 1921. More background information can be found on the Guardian web site.