Experience Music Project

Experience Music Project
Category: Museums
Neighborhood: Queen Anne
9/21/2010
Sting:

"Rock n' roll has become the Establishment.

"I can't imagine a more conservative music than rock 'n' roll...It's almost like a fundamentalist religion.

"Stravinsky is more rebellious than rock 'n' roll by far. Rock 'n' roll has become like a dead art."

http://www.sting.com/n...

So it is not surprising that local billionaire Paul Allen several years decided ago to build his Experience Music Project as a temple to rock music and allow the masses to make the obligatory pilgrimage.

I have actually only been inside once, to hear a talk given in the auditorium under the auspices of the Seattle Art Museum. (In a kind of role-reversal, last year SAM put together an exhibition of art work with Kurt Cobain as themen).

It felt like lots of money, if not inspiration, had gone into the whole thing.

What most impressed me, though, was the building by Frank Gehry seen from the outside: misshapen, undulating, coloristic, iridescent.

A pure vanity project: for Allen, Seattle, and the legions of--mindlessly conformist--rock fans.
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