Every now and then, aspects of the fine art world find their way into mainstream culture. It’s rare, but these crossovers are often potent for what they reveal about the art world—or about how the broader culture sees our little sphere. Among some of my favorites from recent history include Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance as a charmingly pedantic art critic in Netflix’s slasher flick Velvet Buzzsaw, the decision to use Greene Naftali’s gallery as the site of Mr. Big’s funeral in And Just Like That… (2021), or perhaps Alex Da Corte’s wonderful music videos for the absurdist rapper Tierra Whack. 

The year 2024 gave us a selection of new instances of the art world sneaking out into the rest of the world. Below, a selection of some highlights that the Artnet News staff noticed throughout the year. 

Lady Gaga Brings Joker: Folie à Deux Energy to the Louvre, Paints the Mona Lisa a New Smile

Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck/Joker and Lady Gaga as Lee Quinzel in Joker: Folie à Deux (2024). Photo: Niko Tavernise. © 2024 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Though the film may have bombed at the box office, the promotional materials for Todd Phillips’s sequel to his popular Joker (2019) were sweeping and elaborate. Part of that roll-out included a concept album by Lady Gaga, who played Harley Quinn in the movie opposite Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker. A clip of that album’s first music video saw the pop star lumping around the Louvre aimlessly, until she gets the clever idea to repaint the Mona Lisa‘s smile with lipstick. 

‘Why Not?’: Dealer Mary Boone on Getting Name-Checked by Vampire Weekend

Mary Boone in 2013. Photo by Neil Rasmus, courtesy of BFA.

Vampire Weekend, the New York–based band who have a penchant for appropriating aspects of Old New York sensibilities into their music, released a new album this year with a track titled “Mary Boone.” The former dealer seemed unbothered by the homage in a phone call with Artnet News the day the song was released, saying, “If you say that it’s nice, then why not?” 

Inside the Unflinching Lee Miller Biopic That Follows the Surrealist Photographer to War

Andy Samberg as David E. Scherman and Kate Winslet as Lee Miller in Lee (2024). Photo: Kimberley French.

The role of an artist is probably an enviable assignment for ambitious actors, as we know most artists to be complex and compelling individuals. Kate Winslet is one such actor, who rose to the occasion of playing photojournalist and fine art photographer Lee Miller for the biopic Lee, which is focused heavily on the Surrealist artist’s World War II images. The production team had rare and full access to the Miller archives, giving the filmmakers unique insight into the artist’s perspective. 

Behind Danny Lyon’s Celebrated Photos That Inspired the New Film The Bikeriders

Danny Lyon, USA. Elkhorn, Wisconsin. 1966. Cal. (1966). © Danny Lyon/Magnum Photos.

The story of how Jeff Nichols’s The Bikeriders got made is an inspiring one for photographers. Apparently, the director simply took a look at Danny Lyon’s photo-book of his experience tracking the Chicago arm of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club in the 1960s and decided to turn it into a movie. “You had all of the details and you even had some of the greatest lines written for you in this book,” Nichols explained. “I just needed a structure I could hang them all on.” 

Emily in Paris Meets Monet at the Artist’s Famed Giverny Garden

Camille Razat as Camille visiting Claude Monet’s gardens at Giverny in “Love Is on the Run,” season four episode two of Emily in Paris. Cr. Photo courtesy of Netflix ©2024

In perhaps a similar way that people in the late 19th century would stop to marvel at the stylish and opulent paintings of the Impressionists, people during our time turn on Emily In Paris for a similar feeling. That’s why this fourth-season cameo of the lily pond at Giverny,  the home of Claude Monet, felt so appropriate. 

Tilda Swinton Plays the Ultimate Art-World Outsider in A24’s New Film Problemista

Julio Torres and Tilda Swinton in Problemista (2024). Photo courtesy of A24.

Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton is no stranger to the art world. She’s acted in art-adjacent films such as Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon, Caravaggio, and Orlando, for which she curated a well-received exhibition at the Aperture Foundation. She even tried out her chops as an artist in 2013, when she took a snooze at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of an installation called The Maybe. This year, she returned to the art world on screen to play a down-on-her-luck outsider artist named Elizabeth. 

Meet the Indigenous Artist Behind the Unsettling Works on the Hit TV Series The Curse

Benny Safdie in The Curse. Photo by Richard Foreman Jr./A24/Paramount+ with Showtime.

The way art plays into gentrification was on full display in Showtime’s hit show The Curse, which starred Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone as two bumbling and self-centered developers attempting to pitch eco-friendly “passive homes” in a small New Mexico town. The couple attends the opening of a show by local emerging Native American artist Cara Durand, whose work is actually made by Santa Fe–based artist Frank Buffalo Hyde, who recreated his own existing pieces for the show. “It didn’t feel right to manufacture [the artwork] ourselves and it didn’t feel right putting Cara’s name on an existing artist’s work. Instead, we wanted to hire an actual Indigenous artist to help us build that world,” said production designer Katie Byron. 

Love Is Blind Villain Leo Braudy on His Life as an Art Dealer

Season 7 episode 1 of Netflix’s “Love is Blind”. Courtesy of Netflix.

Everyone loves a villain, especially in reality television. A young contestant on popular dating show Love Is Blind decided to approach the trope from the angle of being a rich, entitled art dealer. “I was learning Italian art terminology when I was like, six,” he quips in the pilot episode. “For example, I’ll give you one: sprezzatura.” 

How the Provocative Saltburn Is Renewing Interest in a 400-Year-Old French Ceramicist

Barry Keoghan in Saltburn (2023). Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios. © Amazon Content Services LLC.

It was around this time last year that Saltburn captured our attention for a multitude of reasons. Among them (though likely pretty far down on the list) was a reignited interest in Palissy, a centuries-old school of French ceramics known for its wildly colorful palettes, inspired by plants and flowers. “Do you mean Bernard Palissy? The 16th-century Huguenot ceramicist?” Barry Keoghan name-drops at a dinner early on in the movie. 

As Seen on Furiosa: A Romantic Painting Emerges Amid a Desert Wasteland

John William Waterhouse, Hylas and the Nymphs (1869). Collection of Manchester Art Gallery. Public Domain.

In an unexpected aesthetic twist, George Miller’s industrial, steampunkish prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga features a painting with a distinctly opposite visual language from the rest of the movie: John William Waterhouse’s Pre-Raphaelite canvas Hylas and the Nymphs, which depicts several nymphs bathing among water lilies. 

As Seen on Ripley: The Brutal Art and Life of Caravaggio

Adam Scott in Ripley (2024), viewing a replica of Caravaggio’s Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence (1609). Photo: Netflix © 2023.

 Ripley, the television remake of the 1999 feature film The Talented Mr. Ripley, naturally incorporates many fine art moments, as does its silver screen antecedent. For the remake, a Caravaggio piece, The Seven Acts of Mercy, provides a cheeky bit of foreshadowing for the audience, as the piece depicts a murder in the background of several acts of charity in its foreground. Much like the show’s protagonist, Caravaggio was wrapped up in a murder in Italy (no spoilers!). 

As Seen on Maria Montessori: Hilma af Klint’s Abstractions Signal a Modernizing World

La Nouvelle Femme or Maria Montessori (2023), scene from the film by Léa Todorov. © Geko Films, Tempesta

The show Maria Montessori depicts the life of the founder of an alternative learning philosophy, and in the telling of her life, shows how society had to catch up to her ideas. Thus, the inclusion of several paintings by Hilma af Klint feels especially pertinent, as an artist who knew her own revolutionary approach to painting was ahead of its time. (Famously, the artist didn’t want her paintings viewed publicly after their first showing until 20 years after her death, as she felt the world wasn’t ready for them.)

Brat Autumn? Charli XCX Is Hosting an Arty Listening Party at Storm King Art Center

Charli XCX at the 2024 LACMA Art+Film Gala at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on November 2, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images.

In case you hadn’t heard, 2024 was the year that Charlie XCX’s album Brat took over the world, including a couple acres of land in upstate New York that houses the Storm King Art Center. The pop star hosted a private concert during the daytime on the sprawling property, which houses artworks by Barbara Hepworth, Sol LeWitt, Henry Moore, Nam June Paik, and Claes Oldenburg, among others.

As Seen on The Perfect Couple: A John Singer Sargent Cameo?

The painting, seen in The Perfect Couple (2024). Photo: Screenshot

It’s a famous quote erroneously attributed to Pablo Picasso: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” So where does that leave Billy Howle’s character on the Netflix show The Perfect Couple, who emulates a John Singer Sargent painting for a portrait of his wife in episode one?