For once, Dima Bilan is not sporting his trademark mullet or skin-tight hipster jeans. Instead, the Eurovision star achieves unprecedented gravitas as he poses, draped in fur, with a full beard and a Renaissance beret. Bilan is one of 166 celebrities transformed into classic subjects of art by photographer Ekaterina Rozhdestvenskaya.

Her current exhibit at the Manezh gallery highlights her creation of a new form of celebrity portraiture, in which she recreates famous paintings using stars as models. The featured photos are collected works since 1999, when she began the star series for Caravan History magazine, whose franchise is owned by her husband.

Though widely acclaimed for her unique vision, Rozhdestvenskaya only began her celebrity project after a midlife revelation. The professional translator of English and French novels (and daughter of famous poet Robert Rozhdestvensky) decided that she was tired of staring at high literature all day. For her fortieth birthday, her husband gave her a camera, and she pursued a different kind of translation ever since.

"There was no philosophical aim with these photos. I intended for them to be appreciated not just by the intelligentsia but by a mass audience," Rozhdestvenskaya said.

Rozhdestvenskaya's fusion of kitschy stardom and highbrow art is an amusing, if not groundbreaking, redefinition of pop culture.

With her majestic photos, she offers the anti-paparazzi response to celebrity art. Instead of capturing pop stars in cellulite and wrinkle-line snap shots, Rozhdestvenskaya -- photoshop and set design team in hand -- restores a degree of dignity to the most scandalized idols.

Bilan -- reimagined as Hans Holbein the Younger's 16th-century French ambassador -- looks positively regal.

Rozhdestvenskaya's talent lies in her committed homage to the classics, which are conveniently placed in mini-scale beside the photographs.

Kristina Orbakaite, the daughter of living pop legend Alla Pugachova, becomes a chaste 15th-century maiden in Leonardo da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine." In modest makeup and pulled back hair, Orbakaite -- more famous for her blonde hair and long legs than her singing career -- is almost unrecognizable.

But not all of her celebrity makeovers are so flawless in the transition from painting to photography.

Irina Allegrova, the 56-year-old pop star recognizable by her dark lipliner, raccoon eyes, and throaty love ballads, hardly evokes Jean August Dominique Ingres's female reclining nude. Her spider lashes and bright lipstick cannot compare with the demure Ingre original. And Rozhdestvenskaya's eagerness for perfection can result in a stilted portrayal; Allegrova's flawless 20-year-old body does not exactly suspend disbelief.

Rozhdestvenskaya does not limit her art to celebrities of the pop world. Her camera also reimagined Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Dressed in birches, neoclassical wig and lace cuffs, Luzhkov becomes Mikhail Lomonosov, the 18th-century Russian scientist and writer, after whom the Moscow State University is named.

Nor does Rozhdestvenskaya shy away from more modern works. But her attempts at imitating Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec -- smacking of amateur Photoshop attempts -- fall short of the classics.

Not everyone has the privilege of being made into a famous work of art. Bilan had been hoping for immortalization for four years, but she only agreed to use him as a subject after his Eurovision win made him an international superstar.

Though clearly having fun with the art form, Rozhdestvenskaya takes her vision for remakes seriously. The process of lining up a classical painting with its matching pop star can take her up to a month. Her team consists of an assistant, costume designer, set designer, makeup artist, director, curator and two computer designers.

The exhibition promotes the cult of celebrity to a hyperbolic degree. Pop stars are not only costumed and airbrushed, but also meant to stand in for the greatest subjects of classic art. But Rozhdestvenskaya denies any sabotage.

"It's an educational project. Even kids are learning new classical artist names," she said.

Private Collection (Chastnaya Kollektsiya) runs to Sept. 9 at the Manezh Exhibition Hall, located at 1 Manezh Square. M. Okhotny Ryad. Tel. 698-1660.