The Triennale di Milano presents the exhibition It’s not only Rock’n’Roll, Baby! curated by Jérôme Sans to be held at the Triennale Bovisa June 24 – September 26, 2010 Looking at rock and art from an original standpoint, the exhibition “It’s not only Rock ’n’ Roll, Baby!” tells the story of rock musicians who have also expressed themselves in the visual arts. It is a group show presenting works by twelve artists some of whom are icons on the international rock scene: Alan Vega, Andy, Antony (Antony and the Johnsons), Bianca Casady (CocoRosie), Chicks on Speed, Devendra Banhart, Fischerspooner, Kyle Field, Patti Smith, Peter Doherty, The Kills, Herman Dune. 

The purpose of the show is to exhibit works by musicians who were visual artists before turning to rock; it presents a central aspect of their artistic activity, although it is unknown with respect to their musical successes. The musicians chosen for this show demonstrate that the two forms of expression –rock and art – are inextricably related. All the artists present their own specific formal language. There are, among others, paintings made using Pete Doherty’s blood, Patti Smith’s intimate black and white Polaroids, Antony’s collages. The first edition of the exhibition took place at the Brussels Bozar in 2008, where it was met with great public and critical success. The Milanese initiative represents an ideal continuum that aims at reiterating the same mechanisms that contributed to the success of the original exhibition. As in Brussels where there was a Belgian musician-artist, the exhibition at the Triennale Bovisa will be enriched by an Italian artist, Andy of the group Bluvertigo.The show will be accompanied by a cinematographic review curated by Nick Magazine as well as a few musical performances (program on triennale.org)The exhibition was designed by the most “rock’n’roll” of all curators, Jérôme Sans, founder and former director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, now the director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. His interest in artists who explore a wide variety of different cultural disciplines, led him in the last fifteen years to present the lesser-known aspects of some of the most famous artists. Music has always been part of his world and his work; together with the singer Audrey Mascina, he formed the electro-rock duo “Liquid Architecture”.The catalogue, edited by Carlo Cambi Editore, presents interviews with the artists and images of their work.