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Madonna's "Objects of My Affection": A Tour of Her London Home

Vogue · ▶ 10:50 · 9 min read
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Overview

In this Vogue home tour, Madonna walks through her London house, from the bathroom she calls her office to her bedroom, and presents what she calls "the objects of my affection." Most of the objects are tied to her family, her lost mother, and the artists who have shaped her, above all Frida Kahlo, who she says became "a kind of eternal muse."

9 min read

The Bathroom-Office and the "Mothership"

The tour starts in her bathroom, which she says doubles as her office. She gets a lot of work done there, she explains, because it is "kind of the only room that people leave me alone in." She also keeps art there.

She then moves to the room she formally calls her office, and which she calls "the mothership." She admits she doesn't do much work at the desk because it feels too formal. The room's main appeal is an excellent sound system. When she listens to mixes of music she is working on, she sits on the couch, dims the lights, lights incense, and, in her word, "vibe[s]."

Frida Kahlo's Self-Portrait with a Monkey

The first object she presents is one she calls among her favorites "in the whole world": a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo. Kahlo often painted herself with monkeys on her shoulders, and Madonna offers her own account of why. According to her, Kahlo trained the monkeys to signal when her husband had been with another woman. If he came home from his studio after spending time with one of his female models, the monkeys would "go mad," Kahlo would know, and she would "punish him accordingly."

Madonna says her connection to Kahlo began in high school in Detroit. The only museum available to her was the Detroit Institute of Arts. There she saw Diego Rivera's huge murals, but she was drawn instead to small photographs, "kind of hidden away," of a beautiful Mexican woman. She was taken by the woman's self-possession and unique beauty. That woman was Kahlo.

A few years later she moved from Detroit to New York. Walking around, she came across a street fair and saw a postcard of this very painting. She describes it as her "first 5 minutes in New York," and "the first person I see is Frida." From then on she kept the postcard with her wherever she went, pinning or nailing it to the wall like a guardian angel, and she vowed that one day she would own the painting. Eleven years later it came up at auction, "and she was mine."

She explains why Kahlo matters to her. If you are a struggling artist, a woman struggling in the world, and you feel like an outsider, she says, you can connect with Kahlo. She describes Kahlo's defiant, don't-mess-with-me attitude as a source of strength for her.

The YSL Boots from Confessions Part One

In a hallway that has turned into a dressing room because she has run out of space for clothes, she shows a pair of YSL boots. They were made for her 21 years ago for her Confessions Part One shows. She says they fit incredibly well, are comfortable for dancing, and have stood the test of time.

Now that she is doing Confessions Part Two, she likes feeling connected to the first run through the boots. She says there is "energy in them" and that they support her feet. She is sure they have something to do with her dancing, though she adds, "I don't know." She has worn other boots and shoes, but "these are magic."

Sculptures from Anderson Asteclines

Back in the bathroom, she shows four phallic sculptures, two small and two large, by Anderson Asteclines. She describes him as a young Brazilian artist who is currently part of a program run by Tracey Emin. She met him while visiting Emin.

She recently bought one of his paintings, which was about his relationship with his mother. She asked him whether his mother was proud of him and whether he showed her his work. He said no, because he thought it might disturb her, and he never wanted to upset his mother. He also told her that every one of his paintings was in some way about his mother. Madonna says she almost started crying.

As she was leaving, he ran after her with a brown paper bag and said he wanted to give her something. She opened it in the car on the way home and found the sculptures.

A Wall of Family Mementos

Madonna calls herself very sentimental and romantic, especially about family. She keeps notes and mementos hung or taped informally to the walls.

Among them is a simple wooden rosary. Her grandmother gave it to her a few years before she died, and it had belonged to her mother. Her mother was very religious and prayed every day, saying a Hail Mary on every bead. Madonna adds that the many crucifixes she wore early in her career were "more a tribute to my mother than Catholicism, to be honest."

She also shows Post-it notes from her daughter Esther, written when Esther was five and first learning to write and speak English. One reads "I am sorry, Mom." Madonna doesn't remember what Esther had done. Nearby is a photo of Esther looking mischievous behind her mother's back.

In what she calls a corner of "priceless items" is a bottle of her mother's perfume, Fracas. Whenever she misses her mother, she sprays it on and smells of gardenias and tuberose. There is also a music box someone made for her. It plays her favorite song, "Bella Ciao," which she describes as the song of the Italian partisans who fought fascism and dictatorship during World War II, and which spread across Europe as an anthem.

Rocco's First Sculpture

Next is a sculpture by her son Rocco, the first sculpture he has made. He gave it to her for her birthday last year, and she burst into tears. She says she loves it when her children give her art, whether a song or a painting.

She calls Rocco a talented painter who has been painting since he was 15, and says she looks forward to watching him grow and try other mediums. He is the best person to see a great show with, she says, because he appreciates it as much as she does. She has taken her children to places all over the world to share her love of art, and she thinks it has "really rubbed off on them."

My Birth: A Second Kahlo

In the living room, which she calls the blue room because everything in it is blue, hangs a small Kahlo painting, My Birth. About a decade after buying the self-portrait, she was at someone's house when an elderly man started talking with her about Kahlo. He mentioned he had a small Kahlo painting in his armoire and brought it out. Holding it, she wondered what it was doing in a cupboard. Eventually he sold it to her.

In her reading, the painting is about Kahlo's emotional distance from her mother. Madonna says Kahlo felt shunned, as if her mother didn't care whether she existed, so she painted her mother with a sheet over her head, detached from the scene and from Frida. Madonna grew up without a mother and says she relates to the story "immensely."

She also points to the style. The painting draws on a Mexican tradition called retablo, in which martyred saints or holy figures are painted with their story written beneath. Kahlo never finished the text at the bottom. Madonna describes the image as dramatic and violent. Above the bed is the Virgin Mary with two swords through her neck. The figure's head hangs on the sheet with blood beneath it, not yet fully out of the mother's womb.

Books and a Crocheted Blanket in the Bedroom

The tour ends in her bedroom, where she says she is "so happy." She collects books, especially first editions, and shows her two favorites.

The first is an Italian book about the filmmaker Luchino Visconti, whose Rocco and His Brothers is one of her favorite films. She named her son Rocco after it. Since she can't read Italian, she says she can only admire the pictures and hold it. The second is an English-language book by Simone de Beauvoir, whom she calls "the ultimate feminist."

She also shows a soft blanket Esther crocheted for her birthday. Her daughters learned to knit and crochet during quarantine. Now that Esther plays football, Madonna notes, she no longer crochets for her.

Octavia the Octopus

The last object is a stuffed octopus named Octavia, which she sleeps with every night. A couple of years ago, she says, she was seriously ill in the hospital and in a coma. A nurse named Olivia yelled at her every day that she needed to get up and get out of the ICU, and Madonna says this gave her courage and hope.

When she came home, her sister gave her the octopus. Looking at it, she could only think of her nurse. She didn't want to name it Olivia exactly, so she called it Octavia. The stuffing is "starting to get kind of gross," she admits, but she adores it.

With that, she says goodnight and tells the crew to get out of her bedroom.

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