Arnaud Maguet

Arnaud Maguet's extremely diversified oeuvre questions the bases of the subculture occurring between the 1950s to the 1970s. Starting first from the music sphere (Rock 'n Roll, Punk, Krautrock, Hip-Hop, Free Jazz, psychedelics, repetitive music...), while at the same time overlapping with the experimental films of Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol, DIY graphic design, underground literature, and popular cinema (and all the letters which classify it, from B to Z, and vice versa), a large number of more or less known legends are summoned here. The bond which links these latter is formed around a garage aesthetic—or how, after messing up the hoped-for model, as a matter of urgency and with a flourish, we end up by being awestruck by the result rather than coming to terms with it. Like Theodor Adorno who emphasized the "fetishist character in music", Arnaud Maguet's pieces transform all these legends into relics of our collective memory, either amplifying or distorting fictions. In this way he constructs an oeuvre in which each added element complements the programme of a spectacle which is formed at the very moment of its realization, creating a music label (Les Disques en Rotin Réunis), while at the same time himself becoming a member of various groups (ALPHA-60, Beauty & the Beat, The Groovers, Finger on You).