Ford Theatres presents the premiere of Hassan Hajjaj: My Rockstars Experimental Live, a musical art installation, for one performance only, Friday, October 11 at 8:00 pm at the Ford Theatres. The show is presented with UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance.
Tickets are available online at
FordTheatres.org and by phone (323) 461-3673. Ford Theatres is located at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood, CA 90068.
This live installation by artist Hassan Hajjaj of My Rockstars Experimental includes six performances by a diverse array of international musicians. Styled by the artist, Hassan's chosen "Rock Stars" perform his projected installation of the famous My Rockstars Experimental Vol. 1 series live on stage for the first time, in front of a backdrop of textiles that recreate the unique framing of his celebrated portraits.
Hassan continues his style of personally selected traditional fabrics, as well as clothes and shoes he designs himself that are handmade by Moroccan artisans or sourced in local markets. The musicians bridge the culture gap between now and then, us and them, by reflecting a fusion of traditional Moroccan craftsmanship and contemporary performance.
My Rockstars Experimental Live includes performances by Afrikan Boy, a grime MC based in London who is originally from Nigeria; contemporary African acoustic jazz-folk-soul singer-songwriter Bumi, whose sound is inspired by her multicultural heritage; Simo Lagnawi, a Moroccan musician raised in the Gnawa tradition who works with trance spiritual shamanic drums and meditation sounds; Marques Toliver, a songwriter, producer, violinist, and vocalist from Daytona Beach, Florida; bass player Gail Ann Dorsey, who played with
David Bowie for more than 20 years, toured with Tears for Fears and has played with such people as
Lenny Kravitz,
Bryan Ferry,
Boy George,
Gwen Stefani and many others, and will be performing her long-awaited solo material; and LA-based Syrian American spoken word artist Omar Offendum, who performed last year at the Ford. This one-of-a-kind evening will be emceed by KCRW radio DJ Garth Trinidad. Produced and co-curated by Kamilla Blanche.
Prior to the live show, Hassan Hajjaj's My Rockstars Experimental Vol. 2 will be on display in the Ford Theatres' Community Room, hosted by The Laboratory Arts Collective. Following its premiere at the Ford Theatres, My Rockstars Experimental Vol. 2 will be on display at the new Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, which has acquired the work. The Ford Theatres' exhibit is open to the public from 7:00-8:00 pm, the night of the concert.
A photographer, designer and filmmaker, Hassan Hajjaj is one of Morocco's pre-eminent
International Artists, sometimes called his native country's answer to
Andy Warhol. Born in Larache, Morocco, in 1961, Hassan Hajjaj left Morocco for London at an early age; he currently splits his time between Marrakech and London. Heavily influence by the club, hip-hop, and reggae scenes of London as well as by his North African heritage, Hajjaj is a self-taught and thoroughly versatile artist whose work includes portraiture, installation, performance, fashion, and interior design, including furniture made from recycled utilitarian objects from North Africa, such as upturned Coca-Cola crates as stools and aluminum cans turned into lamps.
He is best known for his photography, a medium he turned to in the late 1980s and in which he draws influence from Pop Art, fashion photography and the studio work of Malick Sidibé. His recent work centers on "rock stars," capturing a range of international musicians and performers in exquisitely composed, radically ornate portraits (and in a film of the same name that debuted at LACMA in 2013).
The New York Times says, "Mr. Hajjaj's images belong to a history of studio photography that stretches from the medium's beginnings to the present, while building on the works of sub-Saharan photographers like Malick Sidibé, who also placed his subjects before signifying backdrops. They riff on Matisse's odalisques,
Jeff Koons's basketball ads and fashion photography as well, all filtered through the lens of a different, indisputably contemporary culture."
Hajjaj's work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the British Museum, London; the Nasher Museum of Art,
Duke University, Durham, NC; the Newark Museum, New Jersey; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Farjam Collection, Dubai; Institut des Cultures d'Islam, Paris; Kamel Lazaar Foundation, Tunisia; and Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA.
Hajjaj was the winner of the 2011 Sovereign Middle East and African Art Prize and was shortlisted for Victoria & Albert Museum's Jameel Prize in 2009. In 2013, Rose Issa Projects published a monograph of the artist exploring his upbringing in Morocco and London, his experiences in fashion and interior design, and his adventures in the music industry influence the vibrant colours, joyful spirit, and visual rhythm of his highly sought-after images.
Hajjaj's first feature-length film, Karima: A Day in the Life of a Henna Girl, premiered at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in May 2015. The film takes viewers into the world of one Hajjaj's most iconic series, Kesh Angels, depicting the henna girls of Marrakesh.
Hassan Hajjaj: My Rockstars was exhibited at the Memphis Brooks Museum in 2016. The film was shown at Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland in June 2015, curated by Cairo-based film curator and lecturer Maxa Zoller. An exhibition Hassan Hajjaj: La Caravane opened in London's Somerset House on October 5, 2017 and in April 2019, Hajjaj opened a solo show, entitled The Path, at the New Art Exchange in London. On September 9, 2019, Hajjaj will have a major retrospective of his work at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (La MEP) in Paris.
This event is part of IGNITE @ the FORD!, a series comprised of world-renowned contemporary artists whose work is thought provoking and reflects the world in which we live. Proceeds from IGNITE @ the FORD! events benefit the Ford Theatre Foundation.
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