Art Comes Alive
May 18, 2010 9:37 PM   Subscribe

"Franco-American" band Hold Your Horses recreates major works of art history in their music video, 70 million.*

* A warning that there is blackface in the video for the recreation of Manet's Olympia. I don't condone this.

Flavorwire has a side-by-side comparison of some of the paintings.
posted by Solon and Thanks (16 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Generalissimo Francisco Franco-American Still Holding Horses -- cortex



 
I'll note I was conflicted about posting because of the blackface - I didn't see discussion of it elsewhere or I'd have linked to it. I really enjoyed the video otherwise, and don't know how to feel about reconciling that with a part of it that I find repugnant. Perhaps others have some insight into this or different feelings.

Previously regarding blackface and France.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 9:42 PM on May 18, 2010


previously.
posted by gursky at 9:58 PM on May 18, 2010


darn, it had none of the terms I searched for. oh well!
posted by Solon and Thanks at 10:05 PM on May 18, 2010


yeah, i had a heck of a time finding the previous one!
posted by gursky at 10:07 PM on May 18, 2010


(side note: thanks for posting the "previously" link - i must have missed that post.)
posted by gursky at 10:10 PM on May 18, 2010




Okay, so I watched it the whole time waiting for the offensive blackface and... totally missed it. Perhaps my cat torpedoed himself onto my MacBook at that critical moment?

But I did enjoy the video very much, so thanks for the post.
posted by ohyouknow at 10:50 PM on May 18, 2010


Ah I see it now. I think I was transfixed by that guy being naked, in a very Bay to Breakers, I'm not that sexy naked kind of way.
posted by ohyouknow at 10:53 PM on May 18, 2010


I knew I'd seen it here before! I loved it the first time I saw it, and where else would I find it but Metafilter?

I passed it on to my high school Art History professor, and he got a big kick out of it too.
posted by Gordafarin at 11:22 PM on May 18, 2010


oh oh oh!
that was so sweeeet!
and i think i'm going to have to pull that van gogh for halloween this year...
posted by artof.mulata at 11:33 PM on May 18, 2010


"Why would a company called 'Franco-American' make Italian food?"
posted by First Post at 12:45 AM on May 19, 2010


I really enjoyed the video otherwise, and don't know how to feel about reconciling that with a part of it that I find repugnant.

Eh. Some people who through no fault of their own happen to be white men (and one white woman) have dressed up as various men and women and children and God and Jesus and the apostles and angels and sunflowers and abstract shapes in famous paintings to make a music video. In the 'Olympia" scene, one white guy is done up as a black woman and another white guy is done up as a white woman, but they don't appear to be mocking blacks or women. They're just doing the painting in a lighthearted manner. In other shots, they're doing whiteface, greenface, yellowface, redface, orangeface, and multicolorface.
posted by pracowity at 1:01 AM on May 19, 2010 [3 favorites]


That was more or less my take on it, pracowity.

Thanks for sharing, Solon and Thanks.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 1:06 AM on May 19, 2010


For me, the song was somewhat reminiscent of early Feelies--which is a good thing. Thanks for posting.
posted by belvidere at 2:38 AM on May 19, 2010


Complete list of paintings.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:13 AM on May 19, 2010


WHY IS EVERYONE TRYING TO SOUND LIKE HERMAN DUNE BUT THEY ARENT FAMOUS ARGH

still, pretty good
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:24 AM on May 19, 2010


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