Medimex 2024, scheduled in Taranto from 19 to 23 June with concerts by The Smile, Pulp And The Jesus and Mary Chain, presents the exhibition Bob Gruen: John Lennon, The New York Years and video mapping Infinite Loops, AI Endless Exploration.
The exhibition Bob Gruen: John Lennon, The New York Yearsheld from 19 June to 14 July at MarTA, National Archaeological Museum of Taranto, tells, through 60 photographs and texts, the photographer’s most important collaboration, that with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Shortly after the couple moved to New York in 1971, Bob Gruen – who will be present at Medimex and will participate in a meeting at MarTA on Wednesday 19 June – he became their personal photographer, as well as a friend, thus managing to document, through his camera, images that portrayed them both in their professional and private lives.
In 1974, during a shooting with Lennon, Gruen suggested that the former Beatles wear the white t-shirt with the writing New York City, which Gruen himself had bought for him at a tourist stall about a year earlier. The result of that photo session were the now iconic images of John Lennon, perhaps his most famous photos of him, wearing the white T-shirt – the sleeves were cut off by Gruen himself – with the skyline of his adopted city in the background. Whether they were shots of Lennon and Yoko while walking together in a park, or those included in the booklet of the album “Walls and Bridges”, or even Sean Lennon as a newborn, Lennon in front of the Statue of Liberty while making the peace sign, the work of Gruen witnesses almost ten years of John and Yoko’s life in New York, after the breakup of the Beatles. Bob Gruen was invited by Yoko Ono to frequent their apartment located in the Dakota Building (outside which Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980) more and more often.
And it was in their home that, in 1977, Lennon recorded some audio cassettes. In those recordings we find songs like Free as a Birdan early version of Real Love And Now and Then. If the engravings of Free as a Bird And Real Love were good enough to be “completed” by McCartney, Harrison and Ringo and included in the posthumous Beatles Anthology releases between 1995 and 1996, Now and Then he had to wait for the intervention of artificial intelligence to see the light. With the technology available in 1995, in fact, it was not possible to separate Lennon’s piano and vocal tracks. Only in 2022, thanks to the use of artificial intelligence, could the song be finished and then released in November 2023. We can certainly consider Now and Then the latest demonstration of the timeless genius of the Beatles who, starting from a home tape by Lennon, almost fifty years later, produced what they themselves declared to be their last song.
The exhibition aims to lead the visitor through the shots of one of the masters of rock photography, not only in the years in which two extraordinary artists such as John Lennon and Yoko Ono produced music, art and socio-cultural revolution, but also to reflect on the use of artificial intelligence by the surviving members of the Beatles in the process that leads to the birth of Now and Then. Once again it is the Beatles who create music and lyrics and, as has already happened in the past, use the best technology available to create the best possible product.
The exhibition is hosted within the National Archaeological Museum of Taranto where it will dialogue with the thousands of finds on display within the MArTA, a place of protection and research, a scientific reference center for the international archaeological community, open to dialogue with the contemporary and with all the artistic expressions of every era. Bob Gruen (New York, 1945) is unanimously considered one of the most important photographers on the music and cultural scene of the last forty years. His most famous shots (John Lennon, Johnny Rotten, Rolling Stones, Elvis, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Tina Turner and Debbie Harry above all), as well as having obtained recognition all over the world, have been exhibited in museums such as the MoMA in New York, the Brooklyn Museum and in the most important art galleries. His photo “Sid Vicious with Hot Dog,” for example, was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London in 1999 for their permanent collection. His images have been used for album covers by Ike & Tina Turner, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Kiss, Ramones, Bob Dylan, Johnny Winter and many others.
Video mapping is scheduled from 20 to 23 June on the facade of the Aragonese Castle of Taranto Infinite Loops, AI Endless Explorationoriginal work by Roberto Santoro and Blending Pixels created for Medimex, a public art action that aims to be a reflection on the theme of the event. The use of AI is developing in many aspects of daily life, raising ethical and philosophical debates on our relationship with technological progress and on the opportunities and risks that this brings with it. The exploration and exposition of this theme in narrative and artistic representation becomes fundamental. Finding a figure capable of revealing the essence of AI – certainty and doubt, beauty and horror – was the first focus of the work. Conceived not only as a conceptual outcome of cultural intersections and iconographic memories, the allegorical image of the Siren connects two aspects together: the symbol of deception and the myth linked to the foundation of Taranto. The choice to portray the AI with a Cybernetic Siren is functional to represent the creature that enchants the human, hiding their danger. AI seduces with the promise of its growing efficiency – offering advanced solutions and new opportunities in multiple sectors – and hides some risks that could constitute serious threats: it is the first technology in history that can make decisions autonomously and take away our power, manipulate the our behavior and make decisions for us or about us. The siren-snake represents a warning: approaching AI with caution and discernment, aware of the risks hidden beneath its surface, is fundamental. However, it is also fundamental to maintain perspective, avoiding creating panic: several times throughout history the advent of new technologies has given rise to concerns and fears, but often these same technologies have led to positive developments and new opportunities. The challenge is to recover, preserve and reconcile the values inherent to human beings and combine them in the present time according to a sustainable model.
