PAPER Magazine's new Kim Kardashian cover story, a collaboration with legendary French photographer Jean-Paul Goude, explicitly sets out "to Break The Internet." It might work, too; the images—one of an oiled-up Kim Kardashian using her butt to balance a champagne flute (a recreation of an iconic Goude image from the '80s), the other simply of Kardashian naked with her back to the camera—are definitely going to be talked about.
Goude has long dabbled in controversy in regards to his work: he's responsible for nearly every memorable image of Grace Jones, with whom he had a tumultuous romantic relationship and a child, including that one of her in a cage. His aesthetic beautifies women, certainly, but beautifies them as objects. He draws in large parts from subversive notions of "exoticism" which today, feel more like pop culture commentary than the ironic exposure of cultural norms they functioned as a few decades back. Either way, it's a smart fit for the winter issue of a magazine closing out 2014, The Year Of The Ass.
