The French musician has been announced to helm the Southbank Centre’s annual event.
Christine and the Queens is set to curate next summer’s Meltdown festival in London, which will take place from 9-18 June 2023. He will also be the youngest ever curator of the event, which has been running since 1993. The news comes ahead of his Southbank Centre performance debut, which sees Christine and the Queens play the venue this evening (22 November) under his Redcar persona, presenting his latest project Redcar les adorables étoiles.
Over the course of ten days, the former Crack Magazine cover star will curate a line-up of artists who have shaped and continue to influence his creative identity, hosting a series of concerts taking place at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room. There will also be two weekends of free outdoor gigs, performances and activities with the first names joining Christine and the Queens set to be announced in spring next year.
Speaking on curating the forthcoming edition of Meltdown festival, the French musician said: “What an honour to be picked by the fantastical teams of the Meltdown festival to be a curator this year! It’s a tough thing to be a curator. Art wise, recently, my curating was erratic. Visceral. Sometimes regressive, back to the music I listened to when I was a teenager. A life-savior, music. One song to soothe them all. We expect from art to still save us yet we endanger it so much, everywhere. Thinking it should sell and clatter like jewels. Thinking it should be the catchiest shit in less than ten seconds when truly the birth of an emotion takes years in some people. We want it to heal it all but we deprive it of it’s true strength, which is eternity, a cancellation of human time. Now it’s fast, quick, a lot, and never about eternity. Cause eternity is death, too. It’s a cycle of ashes and birth. Over and over again.”
Continuing on, he added: “I will actually pick musicians that have some gut-wrenching quality, and I wish for all of us to stroll around in those ten days being rejuvenated by artistic gestures. Discoveries. The time Meltdown takes is quite exquisite, the abundance feels appropriately generous too. We need this for ourselves, art in the city, art for the citizen, collective catharsis, a wonderful purge of the soul. I hope you’ll enjoy this glorious edition and again, long live poetry that burns and musicians crazy and brave enough to keep going – they are shaping the emotions of the future. Let’s thank them all!“.