Event

Musical Paul Gauguin - Part 1

The life story of the world-traveling artist Paul Gauguin is a modern tale of multiculturalism and the social cost of creative freedom. Gauguin himself grew up among the ancient and pre-Columbian artistic traditions of Peru, then pioneered the artist colonies of Celtic-descended Brittany in northwest France. Creatively freed while living among the freed slaves and West African rhythms of Martinique in the Caribbean, Gauguin ultimately rejected Europe to live and paint on the opposite side of the world, the Pacific paradise of Tahiti. Gauguin was himself an amateur musician, who lugged his mandolin, guitars, a French horn and a full-sized harmonium with him to Tahiti, and he often used musical metaphors to illuminate his artistic work and theories.

This is a multimedia project incorporating text from Gauguin and other contemporaries to recount the artist's life, mixed with some of the most stunning and revolutionary artwork ever created. The spectacular world-music score is as dynamic and diverse as Gauguin's own work, and developed in collaboration with professional recording artists from Peruvian, Polynesian, Breton, and Caribbean musical traditions.