By Design

Jean-Paul Goude photographed Kim Kardashian for PAPER Magazine. Goude’s built a career on images designed to provoke—so putting him in front of Kardashian, whose entire operation is built on provocation, makes a kind of sense.

She’s been at this long enough that there’s no pretense left. The sex tape. The reality show. The app. The selfie book. Each iteration slightly more transparent about the transaction—she’s selling her image, mostly her body, and we’re paying in attention. What’s almost honest about her is that she doesn’t hide it. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

The release framed it as her breaking the internet with her ass, which is the same tired line they use whenever a famous woman with a notable body releases photographs. But the pictures probably work fine. Carefully composed. Perfectly lit. Designed to generate exactly this kind of half-interested commentary. Which is the whole point.

I don’t have much to say about it. It’s spectacle working exactly as intended.