Chris Ofili's Freeness

By london_alex Last edited 230 months ago
Chris Ofili's Freeness
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Freeness looks to be Pop Idol minus everything but the music and with the added perk that the music is the artist's own, not just covers – so actually, not Pop Idol at all, but keep reading anyway.

Freeness is hitting Plastic People on Curtain Road on January 26 (that's Wednesday for the calendar inept) for one night only. London is the first of 10 stops on its quest to help modern producers and musical innovators gain some exposure.

Freeness is the project of Turner Prize winner Chris Ofili as part of his ICEBOX initiative. The Arts Council reports that, "Ofili cultivated the seed for the project after releasing a free CD to support his exhibition at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, Within Reach."

Ofili has been well-known for such works as "Double Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars" now on at the Whitechapel Gallery and "No Woman No Cry" at the Tate Modern which both incorporate elephant dung into the work.

The website boasts that "Freeness is the now, and tomorrow for future music visionaries." It hopes to be the springboard for the non-mainstream music industry of the UK. The real deal: If you are an up-and-coming musician looking to get some feedback and show off your goods, bring your CD and friends to Plastic People between 6 and 9 on the 26th, meet other musicians, and wait around for the open session to begin and for your music to work its magic on the crowd.

From what Londonist has gathered from the website, the music may resemble ringtones at times, but we are hopeful that a city-wide appeal for new music will turn out masses of different people and musical experiences. Who knows? Maybe we will find our next featured band of 2005. And besides, admission is free so there are no excuses for not checking this one out. Londonist will definitely be in attendance.

Last Updated 25 January 2005