Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch Create Surreal Cover for W Magazine's Art Issue

For the tenth edition of W Magazine's annual Art Issue, the American publication commissioned artists Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch to produce a series of photographs and a video titled Placebo Pets. The cover features models Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, whose unnaturally smooth, knee-less legs sparked speculation of a Photoshop fail, alongside a half-human, half-animal figure and disembodied hands. Trecartin and Fitch's signature style—described by Art in America as "theater of the absurd in sci-fi version"—is evident in the surreal dialogues, heavy makeup, and mix of real and synthetic avatar characters. A second video, released simultaneously, shows Kendall Jenner reinterpreting five iconic performance art pieces: Yoko Ono's Cut Piece, Yves Klein's Anthropometries, Saburo Murakami's Passing Through, and Marina Abramović and Ulay's Relation in Time and Ahh. Previous artists who collaborated on the Art Issue include Richard Prince, Maurizio Cattelan, Barbara Kruger, Ai Weiwei, Bill Viola, and Yoko Ono.