Centre for Fine Arts
Rue
Ravensteinstraat 23
Brussels
02 507 82 00
It's not Only Rock 'n' Roll, Baby! A Story of Art and Music
June 20-
September 14, 2008

It's not only Rock 'n' Roll, Baby! Brings together for the first time a series of important works by musicians from the 1970s to the moment: Patti Smith, Brian Eno, Chicks on Speed, Fischerspooner, Devendra Banhart, Pete Doherty … This exhibition, electrified by a unique collaboration with the Rock Werchter Festival, shows for the first time the other history of rock: the story of born musicians and artist in the world of art. Some 20 music icons are brought together for the first time, not to give a concert but to present their visual works. This is not about a movement, but about artists who have all followed individual roads, approaching art and music with an undivided soul. They show that these two means of expression are indivisible, despite their differences. It's not only Rock 'n' Roll, Baby! or how the voice of rock emerged in the visual arts.

Artists are Alan Vega, Antony, Bent van Looy (Das Pop), Bianca Casady (Cocorosie), Brian Eno, Chicks on Speed, David Byrne, Devendra Banhart, Fischerspooner, Jonsi Birgisson (Riceboy Sleeps), Kembra Pfahler, Kyle Field, Laurie Anderson, Miss Kittin, Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeah's), Patti Smith, Pete Doherty, The Kills, The Residents and Yoko Ono.

Curator is Jérôme Sans, ex-director Palais de Tokyo (Paris), director Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (Beijing).

Alan Vega (real name Alan Bermowitz) was born in Brooklyn in 1948 and is the vocalist for 1970s and 1980s no wave duo Suicide. Vega's vocals are said to be influenced by Elvis Presley and rockabilly.

He began his artistic career doing light sculptures, and in 1974 he opened a small gallery in lower Manhattan, where he started to create the "Project of Living Artists", a pluri-artistic place to develop various happenings or artistic attempts. Here, he met a jazz band called Reverend B, in which Martin Rev (Martin Reverby) played electric piano. Martin Rev would later become Alan Vega's partner in Suicide. After Suicide disbanded (for the first time) in 1980, Vega released his eponymous first solo record, featuring Jukebox Babe, one of his best-known songs, and defined the kind of rockabilly style that he would follow for some years. Later in his career he made a commercial attempt (Just a Million Dreams), which proved to be unsuccessful.

Antony and the Johnsons is a Mercury Prize-winning music act from New York City. The band is essentially the vehicle for singer Antony (full name Antony Hegarty).

Antony Hegarty is the leader of Antony and the Johnsons. He was born in Chichester, West Sussex, England in 1971 and moved to Amsterdam in 1977 for a period before settling in San Jose, California in 1981. As a teenager he was enthused by the British synth pop of the time — in particular emotive torch singers such as Marc Almond and Boy George. In 1990 he moved to Manhattan to complete a degree in Experimental Theatre at New York University and founded the performance collective Blacklips Performance Cult with creative partner Johanna Constantine.

Schoolfriends Bent Van Looy, Reinhard Vanbergen and Niek Meul founded the band Das Pop in the Belgian town of Ghent. They were initially called "Things to come," but later changed their name to Das Pop.

In 2007 the line-up evolved with the addition of drummer Matt Eccles, a 23-year-old from New Zealand. Soon after Eccles joined the band they played a showcase at Manchester's In The City music industry conference and were then signed by Sony BMG imprint Ugly Truth Records.

In 2007 Das Pop's song Underground was included by French dance act Justice on their mix album Fabric Live.

In January 2008 Das Pop released "Fool For Love on UK independent label Prestel Records. The release featured remixes from French DJ SebastiAn and Yuksek, which was called "the momumental new single from the Belgian electro band" in The Sunday Times Culture section.

Das Pop are currently recording their first album for Sony BMG which is being produced by David and Stephen Dewaele from Soulwax. It is planned to be released in summer 2008. They have a considerable fanbase in Europe.

Fool For Love and Tired by Das pop can be heard in the Bebo Program "Sofia's diary."

Sisters Bianca Leilani Casady ("Coco") and Sierra Rose Casady ("Rosie") formed CocoRosie, an American musical duo, in 2003.

Sierra mainly plays the guitar, piano and harp, and contributes vocals. Bianca sings and manipulates various children's toys/electronic & percussion instruments. CocoRosie performs as a duo and also with other backing musicians on occasion, usually a bassist and either a drummer or beatboxer. They were active for most of 2004, 2005, and 2006 playing dates across the US and making several trips to Europe for tours playing with TV on the Radio, Bright Eyes, Devendra Banhart and others.

In late 2006 they appeared as a featured act at Touch and Go Records' 25th anniversary block party in Chicago along with Big Black, Scratch Acid, Killdozer, The Ex, Uzeda and many others.

Brian Eno (born May 15, 1948, in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England), full name Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, is an English electronic musician, music theorist and record producer. As a solo artist, he is best known as the father of modern ambient music.

With an art school background and inspiration from minimalism, Eno first came to prominence as the keyboard and synthesizer player of the 1970s glam and art rock band Roxy Music. After leaving the group, Eno recorded four highly idiosyncratic and original rock albums, before turning to more abstract soundscapes on records such as Discreet Music (1975) and Ambient 1/Music for Airports (1978). Since then he has made dozens of albums, many with similarly minded collaborators such as Harold Budd, Cluster, John Cale, David Byrne and Robert Fripp.

Eno also became involved in pop music collaborations beginning in the late 1970s, joining David Bowie on his avant-garde Berlin Trilogy and helping to popularise the band Devo and the punk rock-influenced "No Wave" scene. Eno is also notable for introducing the concepts of chance music to pop and rock and roll. Eno's production and songwriting credits include critical and commercial successes by Talking Heads and U2, such as Remain in Light and The Joshua Tree, as well as work with James, Slowdive, Paul Simon and the upcoming Coldplay album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.

Eno has pursued several artistic ventures parallel to his music career, including visual art installations, a regular column in the newspaper The Observer and, in collaboration with artist Peter Schmidt, Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards in which each card contains a phrase or cryptic remark, intended to be drawn randomly, for the purpose of suggesting insights to break a deadlock or dilemma situation.

Chicks on Speed is an electropop group begun in Munich in 1997, after its members met through the Academy of Fine Arts there. Chicks on Speed's core members consist are Alex Murray-Leslie (Bowral, New South Wales, Australia), Melissa Logan (Upstate New York, U.S.), A.L. Steiner (Miami), Kathi Glas (Munich), and Anat Ben David (Tel Aviv).

Grouped around Chicks on Speed is a large and ever-changing collective of musicians, producers, graphic artists, designers, film and video makers, and so on. Though usually considered part of such musical genres as electroclash, Chicks on Speed actually started as a multidisciplinary art group who applied punk-inspired DIY ethic to performance art, collage graphics and home-made fashion (they have created their own stage costumes with cheap and recycled material such as plastic bags and gaffer's tape, for example).

They originally got their name when they earned some extra money at art galleries by hanging paintings on the walls and someone quipped that they worked like "chicks on speed".

They had their own club nights at Munich's Bar: Chicks on Speed had created an installation piece which was called I Wanna Be A DJ, Baby, where they stood behind DJ decks and smashed records while a sound collage tape was playing. For this project they also put together a "box set" with a T-shirt, a cassette, a paper record and a fake interview for their "band", at this stage still imaginary. During this time period they met Upstart (a.k.a. Peter Wacha) of Disko B record label who helped Chicks on Speed to actually get started in music.

David Byrne (born May 14, 1952, in Dumbarton, Scotland) is an American musician and artist. He is perhaps best known as founding member and principal songwriter of the new wave band Talking Heads, active between 1974 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo projects on record, and worked in a variety of media, including film, photography, opera, and internet-based projects. His achievements have been recognized by Grammy, Oscar and Golden Globe awards. He currently lives in New York City. David is a SubGenii.

Devendra Banhart was born May 30, 1981, in Houston, Texas, U.S. but was raised in Caracas, Venezuela from 2 to 13 years old. He is a folk rock singer-songwriter and musician. Banhart's music has been classified as indie folk, psych folk, Naturalismo, and New Weird America; his lyrics are often surreal and naturalistic.

He gained popularity while living in San Francisco after attending the San Francisco Art Institute and gained further popularity when he moved to New York City to record with Young God Records. Banhart lives in Los Angeles.

Fischerspooner is an electroclash duo and performance troupe formed in 1998 in New York. The name comes directly from the founders' last names, Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner. Spiking extremely retro electropop tendencies (recalling Kraftwerk, early Depeche Mode, and Gary Numan) with a modern approach to programming, Fischerspooner produces a quirky, robotic, and strangely subdued kind of dance music. Their albums can be seen as soundtracks to their stageshows, rather than just recordings which are performed live.

Originally a duo formed by classically trained musician Warren Fischer and video-artist and experimental theater performer Casey Spooner for an impromptu rendition of their makeshift track "Indian Cab Driver" at the Astor Place Starbucks, the group grew to over 20 performers, most of whom are dancers and guest vocalists. Their debut album, #1, originally titled Best Album Ever, has been released on several record labels, including International DJ Gigolo, Ministry of Sound and Capitol Records, and includes teir hit singles Sweetness, Emerge, and a cover of Wire's the 15th." Eventually in 2001, they were covered by a tribute act, called "FISHYSPOON", led by performance artist Casey Wilder (aka 20faces). In the final months of 2004, Fischerspooner opened up their FS Studios in New York City to the public for a few hours once a week, allowing people to meet the band and production team, as well as preview new video, music and dance projects that they were working on.

Jón “Jónsi” Þór Birgisson (b. April 23, 1975) plays guitar and sings lead vocals for the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. His trademark is playing an electric guitar with a cello bow and using delay and reverb to get an ethereal and ambient sound. His vocal style includes the frequent use of falsetto. He is openly gay. His boyfriend Alex Somers does much of the graphic design for Sigur Rós and they also perform together as an art collaboration called Riceboy Sleeps. They released their self-titled first book in November 2006. It was an embossed hardcover limited to 1000 copies.Jónsi is also blind in his right eye. He is a vegetarian.

Kembra Pfahler is an American performance artist and rock musician best known as the lead singer of the cult glam-punk band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. She is known for the often sexual nature of her exhibits.

Born in 1961 in Hermosa Beach, California (although one source says she is originally from Malibu), she became a major figure of the 1980s East Village scene. Pfahler has also acted in low-budget horror and softcore porn films.

Well known in fashion circles and spanning the fine line between cult and haute, Pfahler also does film and video work. She follows the artistic philosophy of availablism, using what is closest at hand as both the inspiration for her work as well as the medium.

She is the sister of Adam Pfahler of the band Jawbreaker.

Kyle Field is the man behind the band Little Wings.

Field was born in Alabama, the son of a college football coach, but his family quickly moved to California where he grew up to love surfing. Kyle played bass in the band Rodriguez with M. Ward and Mike Funk.

Field is also an acclaimed visual artist. His first book of drawings was released on the imprint Ahornfelder.

Laurie Anderson (born Laura Phillips Anderson, on June 5, 1947, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois) is an American experimental performance artist and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance art piece in the late 1960s. Throughout the 1970s, Anderson did a variety of different performance art activities. She became widely known outside the art world in 1981 when her single O Superman, reached number two on the UK pop charts. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave.

She has also invented several devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows. In 1977, she created a "tape-bow violin" that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. In the late 1990s, she developed a "talking stick", a six-foot long, batonlike MIDI controller that can access and replicate different sounds.

On April 12, 2008 Laurie Anderson married longtime companion Lou Reed in a private ceremony in Boulder, Colorado.

Miss Kittin (born Caroline Hervé, 1973 in Grenoble, France) is an electronic music DJ, vocalist, and songwriter.

At 22 she began DJing, spinning records in France, Moscow and Chicago with Mike Dearborn. Soon after she met DJ Hell in Marseille who wanted her to record for his International DJ Gigolo label. She presented him with the EP Champagne recorded with The Hacker. Miss Kittin and the Hacker released First Album in 2001. Several tracks, such as 1982 and Frank Sinatra, became anthems of the electroclash scene.

Ms. Kittin studied both contemporary and graphic arts. As time progressed, however, she found herself emulating her parents' musical tastes by developing an interest in musical genres ranging from classic, jazz, funk, and disco to English pop. Finding her niche in electronic music in 1991, Kittin raved all around the country before doing her first mix in April of 1993. Her first set came one year later in 1994, at which time she started her career with Tekmics Booking Agency, playing in the famous Dragon Ball wild parties of Southern France.

Nick Zinner (born Nicholas Joseph Zinner on December 8, 1974) is the guitarist for the New York rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. He is known for his "unmistakable" wild hair, skinny physique, and pale appearance.

Zinner is also a member of the band Head Wound City along with members from The Locust and The Blood Brothers. Since 2001, Zinner has many collaborative efforts under his belt with such acts as TV on the Radio, Har Mar Superstar, Ronnie Spector, The Horrors, and Scarlett Johannson.

Brian Eno, 55 Million Crystals, Permanent Installation, Swarovski Kristallwelten, opened December 2007.

Bianca Casady (CocoRosie), Willow Ghost Willow, 2007, Mixed Media, 49.53x69.85 cm, Photo Credit: Tom Powel Imaging, Courtesy Deitch Projects, New York.

Miss Kittin, bored in madchester, All drawings by Miss Kittin (Caroline Hervé), © 2002, Miss Kittin.

Chicks on Speed (Melissa Logan, Alex Murray-Leslie, Kathi Glas), Girl Monster, 2006, Textile patchwork banner, an interpretation of the cd cover of Girl Monster, released on Chicks on Speed Records, 2007, from the exhibition Switch on the Power, Monthermoso Museum, Vitoria, Spain, All courtesy and © Chicks on Speed.

Bent Van Looy (Das Pop), Untitled, 2006 © Philippe de Gobert.

Bianca Casady (CocoRosie), Photo Credit: Tom Powel Imaging, Courtesy Deitch Projects, New York.

David Byrne, Music Tree, Digital print, 2003, Courtesy Pace / MacGill Gallery, NYC, www.davidbyrne.com/art.

Kembra Pfahler, The Volutuous Horror of Karen Black, 2007 © Kristy Leibowitz.

The Kills (Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince), hotel ashtray, Polaroids, 2002-2006, Courtesy of Red Meat Heart.

Kyle Field, Quandri Perrot, 2006, Watercolor on paper, 16,5 x 20,7 cm, © Kyle Field, courtesy Cardenas Bellanger, Collection particulière, Paris.

Pete Doherty, Blood Portrait, 2007, Pigment print on paper, 42 x 59,4 cm, Edition of 35 + 5 AP's, Courtesy Bankrobber Gallery, London.

Patti Smith, Self Portrait N.Y.C., 2003, Gelatin Silver Print, 10 x 8", Edition 1/10, (SMIH-0327.1), Courtesy Robert Miller Gallery, New York.

Patti Smith (born Patricia Lee Smith December 30, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter and poet. She was influential in the birth of the punk rock with her 1975 debut album Horses. Called "Godmother of Punk," she integrated the beat poetry performance style with garage rock. Her allusions introduced 19th century French poetry to American teens, while her "unladylike" language defied the disco era. Smith is most widely known for the song Because the Night, co-written with Bruce Springsteen and reached number 13 on Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In 2005 Patti Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French Minister of Culture and in 2007 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Pete Doherty (born March 12, 1979) is an English musician, artist, published writer and poet. He is currently a singer and songwriter in the band Babyshambles, but best known musically for his work with The Libertines, alongside Carl Barât. In 2005, Doherty became prominent in tabloids, the news media, and pop culture blogs because of his romantic relationship with supermodel Kate Moss and his well-publicised drug abuse.

The Kills are an Anglo-American post-punk indie rock band formed by American vocalist Alison "VV" Mosshart and British guitarist Jamie "Hotel" Hince.

Mosshart was previously in Floridian punk rock band Discount, and Hince was in the British rock bands Scarfo and Blyth Power, the latter an anarcho-punk band. The duo first met when Mosshart heard Hince practicing in the hotel room above hers, and when the former groups disbanded they struck up a songwriting partnership. For months, the pair air mailed work tapes across the Atlantic; this proved to test the patience of both artists as it took days or weeks to get each other's tapes, so Mosshart moved to London.

The Residents are an avant-garde music and visual arts collective who have created over sixty albums, created numerous musical short films, designed three CD-ROM projects, ten DVDs, and undertaken six major world tours. Throughout their career, spanning nearly four decades, they have maintained complete anonymity. All public relations, interviews and promotions are handled by their spokesgroup, The Cryptic Corporation.

Yoko Ono Lennon (born in Tokyo February 18, 1933) is a Japanese artist and musician. She is known for her work as an avant-garde artist and musician, and her marriage and works with world famous English musician John Lennon.