Romance

 

 

Romance

Curated by: Peter Menéndez

 

The CD Romance (1998), by singer Luis Miguel with its structural mix of rapturous melodies and simple, quirky phrases of Spanish language words, provides the foundation for this exhibition.

 

The singer’s retelling of old standard repertory highlights the art of song crafting and how collaborations between composers and lyricists work to make magic. These efforts further bring to mind the chance interactions in the work of John Cage and Merce Cunningham and the goings-on between the surrealists and their exquisite corpse experimentations.

 

The exhibition Romance takes its cue from the songs that make up this landmark CD and ponders the relation of sound and lyrics, the impact between memory and visual statement, as it invites visual artists to use excerpts of the lyrics as seed for dialogue and creation.

 

One line of text from each of eights songs in the CD has been selected and, at random, provided to several artists for each to use as spring board in the creation of an art piece.  The conversation started generates dialogues that reflect and/or move on, unhindered from their source of origin.