Just like the music itself, event production has come a long way over the past century. Instead of empty or largely simple stage sets, massive LED monitors projecting often dizzying animations have become commonplace for a range of different genres in the past 15 years. For Kendrick Lamar, however, the acclaimed Los Angeles-based rapper chose to keep things simple on his recent performances, such as this past Friday at Lollapalooza in Chicago.
The Pulitzer Prize and 16-time Grammy Award winner was seen performing hits off his latest album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, in front of a large fabric featuring reproductions of Henry Taylor’s paintings Fatty (2006) and Sweet (2012). “We wanted a kind of show that didn’t depend on LED walls or anything like that—just backdrops revealing themselves over the course of the show in a lo-fi, theatrical, old-Broadway type of way,” said Mike Carson, who co-directed the show alongside Lamar and collaborator Dave Free.
“When you go to a festival or a show, there are things you’re always going to see. One thing I love about Kendrick and Dave is that they’re always like, ‘How do we flip that on its head?’ If people at a festival see the same thing for eight hours in a day and then you come on at 11 p.m., how can you refresh the palate?”
Lamar and Taylor, who both proudly hail from LA, have been fans of each other for some time now. In collaboration with Hauser & Wirth, the two sides enlarged the artwork as big as 60 feet wide by 34 feet tall across a polyester silk fabric that gives an added pop to the original paintings. “We all see a lot of things that are so polished and overly stylized or overly computer-generated, but I really feel the stories in Henry’s art,” Carson added. “As a Black man, I definitely see a lot of my history and a lot of my family’s history—and I’m sure a lot of other people do too.”
In addition to Chicago, Taylor’s artwork has already featured at Lamar’s gigs at Primevera Sound in Barcelona this past June and Bonnaroo in Tennessee, along with appearing in Pharrell Williams‘ debut menswear collection for Louis Vuitton. The stage design will continue to make an appearance at his upcoming shows in North America and Asia.
For more on art, Patrick Martinez to present “Ghost Land” exhibition at ICA SF.
