Yesterday, we wrote about Ramon Silva's Becoming Beyonce room installation at this week's SPRING/BREAK art show in New York. The room has a glitter-covered floor, a white chair, projections of Beyonce's greatest dancing moments (that are short and GIF-like), and remixed versions of her songs and their catchy hooks in the background. In short, it's a fan's dream, but it's not necessarily made by a fan (or for fans).
Ramon Silva, who did a similar work about Rihanna that was shown at David Zwirner gallery last year, made the piece in response to Internet hype from Beyonce's out-of-the-blue album drop. As you can see in the video below, it's quite immersive and hypnotizing, showing how fans deify and worship Beyonce in a particularly obsessive way.
Read our short interview with Ramon below and catch his piece at SPRING/BREAK through the weekend if you're in New York.
It’s about how the stars aligned for her, kind of like it was all meant to be—she was meant to be a huge star.
What inspired you to make this? Was it being a fan of Beyonce?
I really made it to talk about how people reacted to the new album's release. Hours after it came out, I already saw a girl playing it and dancing to it on the subway. I love Beyonce, but I just started thinking about this hype concept and ran with it for the show. I had a beat that I made a long time ago, and I used it with her songs.
The entire piece is called Becoming Beyonce, and it’s about how the stars aligned for her, kind of like it was all meant to be—she was meant to be a huge star. So I looked up her sign, Virgo, and I used symbols of ascension and other deities.
It looks like there are religious Hindu symbols, too.
Yeah, and then I have her as Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and good luck. I was just playing with the whole idea of being wealthy and putting particular symbols together.
I'm putting the hypnotic parts of her sound and visuals together.
Do you like Beyonce's new album?
I mean, I don’t mind the music, but I’m responding to the phenomenon more than just being a fan. I don’t go clubbing that much anymore, but I recently went to the club, and they played "Drunk in Love" multiple times. Every girl got up and started twerking and dancing immediately. Her music is inviting, and that’s why I use a lot of this hypnotic imagery interlaced with the performances, because it’s all hypnotizing you at the same time. I'm putting the hypnotic parts of her sound and visuals together. I just ripped lots of her performances and made them into what might be a distilled form of what she means to people.
