Interview magazine has defended its decision to feature Kylie Jenner posing in a wheelchair on the front cover of its December/January issue after being accused of "ableism".
Interview's shoot pays homage to work produced by Allen Jones, a British pop artist famous for his controversial sculptures of half-naked women on all fours and in other submissive positions being used as human furniture. Jones produced his sculptures in the 1960s and 1970s and they provoked controversy once again during his retrospective in 2014.
Jenner and the magazine were accused of using disability as a fashion statement over pictures from the shoot showing Jenner posing in a wheelchair with golden frames.
Other images reversed Jones' work by presenting a doll-like Jenner staring lifelessly while straddling a man on all fours. In another, she stands on top of a box, gazing down. In all she is wearing latex and long, high-heeled boots, echoing the S&M theme running throughout his original sculptures.
In a statement given to E!News, Interview defended its decision to use the wheelchair as a prop.
The magazine said it championed artists and claimed Jenner’s shoot explored the way she is both objectified by media scrutiny and exploits it to her own personal gain.
"At Interview, we are proud of our tradition of working with great artists and empowering them to realise their distinct and often bold visions," a spokesperson said. "The Kylie Jenner cover by Steven Klein, which references the British artist Allen Jones, is a part of this tradition, placing Kylie in a variety of positions of power and control and exploring her image as an object of vast media scrutiny.
"Throughout the Art Issue, we celebrate a variety of women who are both the creators and subjects of their artistic work, and the Kylie feature aims to unpack Kylie's status as both engineer of her image and object of attention.”
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