Arnaud Maguet & guests (Black Jack Editions)

Using very diversified means, Arnaud Maguet (born 1975, lives and works in Nice, France) questions the basic aspects of the 1950's to 1970's subculture. He starts with music (rock'n'roll, punk, krautrock, hip-hop, free jazz, psychedelic and experimental music…), then goes on to Kenneth Anger's or Andy Warhol's experimental films, D.I.Y. graphics, underground literature, popular films (and all the letters that categorise them, from B to Z and vice-versa) ; in so doing he calls forth a great many more or less well known legends. These legends have in common a garage type of aesthetic – or how, after one has completely and urgently failed to replicate the hoped for model, one chooses to marvel at the result rather than just to make the best of it. Like T.W. Adorno who underscored the “fetishist aspect in music”, Arnaud Maguet's pieces turn these legends into relics of our collective memory, magnifying or distorting the original fiction. Thus he produces a body of work in which each added element completes the programme of a show that takes shape as it is being performed, creating a record company (Les Disques en Rotin Réunis / United Rattan Records), while at the same time becoming a member of various groups himself (Alpha-60, Beauty and the Beat, the Groovers, Finger On You).