MUSAC presents on May 17 the project that the artist Hedi Slimane has produced ex professo for the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León. Through a publication and an installation created expressly for this occasion, Slimane continues his personal exploration of youth aesthetics in relation to music as a factor of construction and transformation of identity.
In May 2007 Hedi Slimane was invited by MUSAC and Maraworld—the company that promotes the International Festival of Benicàssim—to portray with his camera the 18th edition of the major musical event. For the four days of July during which thousands of young people from all over the world concentrated on the shores of the Mediterranean to attend their annual date with music, Slimane unceasingly pursued with this camera those beats so characteristic of his own aesthetic. Now, almost a year later, the reflection of that work is presented in a project that, through an installation in Leon’s museum space, and a publication, puts the French creator’s aesthetic universe into perspective.
As regards the installation, Slimane once again exhibits the connections between musical celebration and fans, and, definitively, the constructive reciprocity of both identities through the exchange promoted by live music. Thus, visitors to the exhibition will find a display of all the iconography intrinsic to a concert: an empty stage and the young members of the audience. The artist thus ultimately proposes an inversion of the habitual role of the spectator—or fan—as the visitor is allowed onto the stage to experience the rock star’s overwhelming sensation when before the masses who expectantly await the appearance of their idol, whom they venerate, and with whom they identify.
Undoubtedly, this is an installation that goes beyond photography and in which Slimane resituates the audience inside the action, as it is both an active and passive subject of a moment that is frozen.
Exhibition Title: HEDI SLIMANE_MUSAC
Artist: Hedi Slimane
Curator: Agustín Pérez Rubio
Coordination: Marta Gerveno
Venue: Hall 1
Dates: May 17—September 7, 2008
With the support of Maraworld