OAF Talk | I am Paint, I am Art, I am Stone: The Sacred, The Profane and The Preordained in Lee 'Scratch' Perry's Artistic Practice
Speaker: David Katz
Saturday, September 17th, 12:15pm-1:15pm
Free Entry
Auditorium Fondation Pernod Ricard
1, cours Paul Ricard, 75008
In this illustrated presentation, authorised biographer David Katz will use song clips, still images and film clips to trace the evolution of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s arcane art, illuminating the parallels and disjunctions with his music productions, as well as the divine and didactic motivation at the root of it all, which saw him simultaneously venerating the spiritual, the sexual and the scatological.
Lee Scratch Perry
Born 1936, in Kendal, Jamaica; Died 2021 in Lucea, Jamaica.
After founding the infamous Black Ark Studio, Lee Scratch Perry became one of the pioneering forces in the development of reggae and dub. By the end of the Seventies he started painting occult symbols and “dub-collages” around his studio, which gradually developed into a multidisciplinary Gesamtkunstwerk practice. â Often imbued with spirituality, Perry’s visual output had since taken the form of multi-layered clusters that continually shift and change; creating an ever-expanding network of paradisal animals, cartoon figures and saints using paint, mirrors, rocks, photographs, video and computer-transmitted word-association poems – in a ceaseless quest to venerate the Almighty.
Born in San Francisco and long resident in London, David Katz is the author of People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae, and a contributor to The Rough Guide to Reggae, A Tapestry of Jamaica, Keep On Running: The Story of Island Records and Mashup: The Birth Of Modern Culture, among other books. His writing and photographs have appeared in many international periodicals, including the Guardian, Newsweek, Mojo, Q, Wax Poetics, Caribbean Beat and Riddim and he has compiled and annotated over 100 retrospective collections of Jamaican music. Katz has produced documentaries on the music and culture of Jamaica, Grenada and Brazil for Public Radio International and contributed to documentaries and feature films for the BBC, Channel 4, Arte and other entities, and released original records. He has chaired panel discussions with performers and practitioners in diverse settings, performed as a deejay on four continents, and since 2004, his Dub Me Always vinyl nights have been a regular feature of London’s musical landscape. More at davidkatzreggae.com
Special thanks to The Visual Estate of Lee Scratch Perry / suns.works
Preview Lee Scratch Perry artworks