"This is not a love song", an exhibition in La Virreina

From the 22nd of May until the 29th of September La Virreina Centre de la Imatge will hosting an exhibition titled ‘his is not a love song, a crossroads between video art and pop music. The objective of the exhibition is to shed some light on the relationship between these two artistic disciplines from the 1960s to the present day, placing special emphasis on cases where one field influences, inspires and, as is often the case, provides feedback for the other.

There can be little doubt that this is a real phenomenon. It would be impossible to separate the work of creators such as Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, John Baldessari, Andy Warhol, Vito Acconci, Rodney Graham or Damien Hirst from the rise of popular music as a key aesthetic element of Western mass society during the second half of the 20th century. Creativity is often a mirror of society, albeit a distorting mirror, and our society has been thoroughly impregnated with the language of pop, rock, punk, hip-hop, electronic music, etc. Many of the aforementioned creators have worked alongside icons from the world of music, who in turn have felt an irresistible attraction for the moving image as an accompaniment for their songs. This relationship led to the music video-clip, a genre that is explored extensively in the exhibition, a co-production of Screen Projects and Primavera Sound.