COURTESY GARAGE MAGAZINE
For Garage magazine’s 15th issue, Rihanna features in a cover image photographed by Deana Lawson, whose appearance in the 2017 Whitney Biennial helped propel her to widespread popularity. Lawson shows the R&B star in a vibrant floral top and black briefs, with some intricate fingernails to boot.
The cover comes shortly after a spread by Juergen Tellerfor the December 2017/January 2018 issue of Vogue Paris generated controversy for the ways it seemed to borrow heavily from the work of Mickalene Thomas.
About the Garage issue, Mark Guiducci, the magazine’s editor in chief, said, “Every image maker who picked up a camera for Issue 15 is a woman, and those women took us to Nigeria, Sweden, California, Tokyo, and Harlem, among other locations. Rihanna is perhaps our most human of pop idols—unguarded, miraculously vital, perfect in her imperfections—making her the consummate subject for Deana.”
The new issue of Garage, titled “The Human Future,” also features an interview between Lawson and Arthur Jafa.