Maurizio Cattelan Has Enlisted Iggy Pop, Jordan Wolfson, and Other Artists to Read Aloud Bedtime Stories—and It’s the Stuff of Nightmares

How would you like to have the dulcet voice of David Byrne
recite poetry to you? Or hear Iggy Pop read a love letter to a dog?
Or listen to an indictment of the presidency in the form of a
limerick by Marilyn Minter? Well, now that can all become a
reality, thanks to a new project from the artist and raconteur
Maurizio Cattelan.

Cattelan’s new audio series “Bedtime Stories,” concocted in collaboration with the
New Museum, launched today and will feature contemporary artists
reading selections from their most treasured texts of choice,
debuting daily through the end of June.

Don’t expect to hear any lullabies here though. Rashid Johnson
will recite Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
by Amiri Baraka, Thomas Hirschhorn has chosen a passage from
philosopher Simone Weil’s Gravity and Grace, and
David Byrne will read from the 1964 psychiatric case
study The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, in which author
Milton Rokeach expounds on his experiment on three paranoid
schizophrenic patients at Ypsilanti State Hospital. Other
contributors include Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Jordan Wolfson,
and Tacita Dean.

It’s not all heavy though, the debut recording (available on the New Museum’s website and social
channels) is a delightful sonic sound bite: the disembodied voice
of Iggy Pop, one of the godfather’s of punk, reminiscing about a
beloved dog. It is a real treat.

“You could say all of my work is about the power of images and
their seductiveness and their complexities” Cattelan told the New York
Times. “But sometimes it’s worth showing less and
listening more.”

The post Maurizio Cattelan Has Enlisted Iggy Pop, Jordan
Wolfson, and Other Artists to Read Aloud Bedtime Stories—and It’s
the Stuff of Nightmares appeared first on artnet
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