If I had David Byrne reading me bedtime stories in my youth I probably wouldn’t have ended up in therapy. Artist Maurizio Cattelan has announced a new project in collaboration with The New Museum — a contemporary art space in New York. Bedtime Stories will see musicians, visual artists and other pop culture juggernauts read excerpts of their most beloved books, or draw from their own material.
The first instalment of the series has already been released, and features the Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop, reading a love letter to a long-lost dog. We didn’t anticipate crying this early into the day, but I suppose time is merely a concept in this modern age. You can listen to it here.
A new instalment of the project will be uploaded every day to the New Museum’s website. Still to come are readings from musicians David Byrne, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Black Thought, as well as visual artists Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Tacita Dean, Raymond Pettibon, Marilyn Minter, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Andra Ursuta, and more.
Earlier this month David Byrne’s online magazine Reasons to Be Cheerful launched a new series exploring “the once-in-a-generation potential of the extraordinary changes” occurring in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is a catalyzing moment and many of the changes that have been made or contemplated are going to be permanent –– some of those are good, and some deeply questionable,” Byrne said in a statement. “We at Reasons to be Cheerful of course want to know: how can we keep the good stuff? Who is doing it (it’s already happening) and how those ideas and initiatives are working out?”
Byrne launched Reasons to Be Cheerful in August 2019 as a “tonic for tumultuous times.” In a mission statement, he explained that the website hopes “to balance out some of the amplified negativity and show that things might not be as bad as we think.”
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