Madonna

Career & style

Madonna moved to New York in 1978 to pursue dance and developed a recording career through the city’s music scene. Her self-titled debut album appeared in 1983. Music videos and concert productions became important settings for changes of image, allowing songs, choreography and clothes to operate as parts of a larger visual narrative.

Her early visual work mixed street-style references with theatrical glamour. A fashion study can follow how layers, hosiery, jewelry and the outline of a stage costume organize that mixture. The aim is not to describe every period as the same kind of provocation. Photographs from different tours reveal different relationships between the body, the audience and the scale of the production, and should retain their separate dates and contexts.