Last week, Lady Gaga starred in performance artist Marina Abromovic’s Kickstarter video for her own “Abromovic Method,” which inspires similarly minded artists to be present and in the moment. In case you didn’t know, Marina Abromovic is a sixty-six year old Serbian performer and self-titled “Grandmother of Performance Art.” Her pieces generally focus on the possibilities of the body and mind and the barriers between audience and artist. You might have spotted her in Jay Z’s “Picasso Baby” piece earlier this month , during which the rapper performed the same song for six hours for one audience member at a time; Jay Z was very much influenced by Abromovic and even raps to her for a few seconds in the video of the piece that is circulating online.

But back to Lady Gaga — despite the fact that the singer was featured in the video to promote her collaborator’s work, what has caught the eye of most news outlets is not Marina Abromovic’s “methods,” but Lady Gaga’s appearing completely nude in the video. On the Kickstarter page, you can see her going through some of Abromovic’s exercises, humming, stretching, and walking through a meadow. You might remember back in September of 2012 when Gaga was slammed by the press for appearing to have gained weight over a short period of time. Lady Gaga was honest with her critics, discussing her eating disorder and struggles with body image. Now that she has lost the weight that she was accused of gaining, people are still focusing on her body. This time because she’s naked.

What I see most from articles about Abromovic’s Kickstarter is less a criticism of the spiritual exercises Lady Gaga is performing, but a discomfort with the naked body. These articles seem to all share an immature view of the whole venture, “teeheeing” at a naked woman’s body doing bizarre looking things, rather than having an appreciation of the art and acknowledging how brave it is for Lady Gaga to have stripped down less then a year after a very public discussion of her weight. Being naked in public (on the internet of all places), unashamed, and proud of her body for being strong and functional is probably the most effective statement Lady Gaga could have made to the media.

Have you seen the video on Marina Abromovic’s Kickstarter page? What did you think?

-Julie