Made a side trip to the Academy of Arts Helsinki and sat at the “Moscow Conceptualism. Erosion and After, Moskovskij kontseptualiszm. Erozija i posle” book launch. The writers sat around a table reminiscing their travels in Moscow 25 years ago. The book is an anthology and the articles I browsed focused on stories of the now famous artist. A dull approach to an important subject.
Visited Mikko Joensuus “Amen 1” concert at the St. John’s Church, Helsinki (My second church concert of the week). The music was good and it was an emotional performance. A tad too long and repetitive but good. The audience was packed with hipster-jesus-lookalikes. Antony Bentley was performing in the chorus and keyboard! I joined the after gig celebrations with his friends and family but had to leave be before he arrived.
While walking home I saw a billboard prompting a stadium gig of a popular rapper. His name was written big but the majority of the ad’s surface was covered with names of celebrities and elderly musicians the rapper had invited to feature in his concert. It occurred to me that contemporary musicians use the same promotional strategies as sitcoms, talk-shows and shitty movies: Popular artists build cartels and always invite each others as guest stars of their products and reference each others. Mega clusters of popular artist strive to control popular opinion, preserve status quo and solidify the particular media ecosystem that helped their sort of artist hood to strive.