MEDI1TV Afrique : #Chronique_culture du 30-10-24 - 30/10/2024
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00:00Welcome to MEDIEN TV, I'm Dahar, and today we're going to talk about the British artist-interpreter Boy George,
00:18who is presenting his new collection of sketches, because yes, he is also an artist-painter.
00:24And it's at an exhibition called FAME, translated as Celebrity.
00:29Because long before he became an icon of pop music of the 1980s, Boy George dreamed of being an artist,
00:38of the star brush genre.
00:41It was at the time when George Alan Oudwood, of his real name,
00:46received frequent encouragement from his professor of plastic art.
00:51According to Boy George, art was the only place where I could be complacent and free.
00:58I suggest you listen to him.
01:00I would describe my art as a total search for attention.
01:05It's as if I wanted people to look at my works and say,
01:09Oh, it's Boy George.
01:11And I have the feeling that today it is possible more than before.
01:15I have the impression that this work is really a reflection of me,
01:19of the way I see the world, of my sense of humor,
01:23of the things I love, of my heroes, of the people who influence me,
01:27of the people who have been important in my life and who I still love,
01:31even if no one else knows who they are.
01:34I think that for me, it's another way of expressing my ideas about the world,
01:39what I feel about this world.
01:42I am essentially a portraitist.
01:45I make faces, but special faces.
01:48I have the impression of documenting my generation in a certain way
01:52because the world has finally caught up with what I was doing 40 years ago.
01:59As a teenager, Boy George channeled his feelings of freedom and complacency
02:04by drawing his favorite musical figures, in particular David Bowie.
02:09As an adult, having met a number of famous people,
02:14he continued this habit and published a series of works depicting personalities
02:19such as David Bowie, Madonna, Prince and himself.
02:23Boy George said that each of these icons perceived the celebrity differently
02:29and that there was no good way to do it.
02:32From an artistic point of view, this goes back to what Boy George presents
02:36the celebrities he chose in emblematic outfits, their self-adopted altars.
02:41The works are luminous, flat and underlined in black,
02:44a trend that we compare, for good reason, to his signature on paper pencils for the eyes.
02:51It seems to have been composed on a digital tablet.
02:54Let's listen to Boy George again.
02:56My instinct feels like it's the right way to make work.
03:01It's to be very sort of almost primitive and a bit punk-rocky.
03:26I just want it to be pretty, so I spend time looking at pictures of Madonna.
03:31I also throw away a lot of my works because they are not successful.
03:35And then you have to know that for the realization of a work, there are so many processes,
03:40like perling, gluing, using thread to create shadows.
03:45It all comes down to a kind of simplistic approach to prepare.
03:50That's the essence I'm looking for.
03:52I really don't try to create something that looks exactly like someone in a photo.
03:58But I want people to say, oh my God, it's Prince.
04:12And as for his self-portrait, Boy George depended on it at the beginning of his celebrity life,
04:17at a time when he was regularly grumpy.
04:20It is not the most obvious emotion that emanates from Color by Numbers,
04:24which is also the name of the 1983 Culture Club album.
04:29We see him in close-up, caricature, the eye in star, the nose in abstraction like Picasso,
04:34and the head surrounded by hair strands.
04:36It is a recovery, he says.
04:39I was an invention.
04:40It is therefore easy to draw this person because she is engraved in stone.
04:45Moreover, a series of works in acrylic evokes the time when Boy George
04:48frequented New York clubs in the mid-1980s.
04:52Boy George's famous prints were published in 195 copies,
04:58each being sold for $2,275.
05:02And over the course of his career, which extended over several decades,
05:06Boy George left his mark on all sectors in which he entered,
05:11thus consolidating his legacy as an icon of pop culture.
05:16I suggest you listen again to Boy George.
05:24We all have our own relationship with celebrity.
05:27You know, it's different for everyone.
05:29There are clichés, of course, and we know them.
05:32But as far as I'm concerned, the way you behave as a public figure
05:37is a very individual experience.
05:40I would say that my relationship with celebrity has changed spectacularly
05:45over the last ten years because my way of thinking things has also changed.
05:51So I feel very different from what I am and what I have created.
05:55I feel like I appreciate celebrity more because it's not really a big deal.
06:04So I always try to write things that I haven't written
06:08or put things in a song that no one else has put in a song.
06:18Thank you, dear viewers, for your loyalty.
06:21The information continues on our various channels.
06:23Aramic Media TV, African Media TV, Maghreb Media TV
06:26and of course on our digital media, medianews.com.
06:29And we're obviously following up on one of Boy George's latest songs
06:33and it's called Electric Energy.
06:38All the drips I buy
06:40All the devils you imply
06:44All the things you fake
06:47All the ways you hate
06:51Give me your electric energy
06:57Let me feel that fire burning inside of me
07:05Send it from my fingers to my feet
07:12And that light can shine it down on me