J Balvin launches into the art world

Young people at school may have the perception that art is boring. That is the vision I had when I was a child: that it was too serious and that you had to have a certain taste to understand it,” says José Balvin, alias J Balvin, the Latin reggaeton superstar who is among the most listened to artists in the world. artists on Spotify. “My vision is to let people know that this is just art. It is not necessary to understand it, you just have to go see it and feel it.”

Fresh off a 3 a.m. flight from Puerto Rico, the 38-year-old singer-songwriter and record producer sits in his New York City home while his hairstylist gets him ready amid the whirlwind of hustle and bustle leading up to the filming of his new video. musical. Click Click Flash. He’s excited about filming, but also eager to talk about a completely different set of videos coming out this fall: a bilingual art guide he’ll be presenting for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, is a collaboration with her close friend, Hirshhorn director Melissa Chiu.

Chiu, 51, born in Australia, named the singer, known for hits such as “In Da Getto” with Skrillex (2021), “La Canción” written with Bad Bunny (2019) and “Mi Gente” with Willy William (2017 ), as the museum’s first cultural ambassador in November of last year. “Our entire mission is to provide free access to art. The idea is that we should meet people where they are, and if people prefer to learn about art in Spanish, then we should provide it to them,” says Chiu, a writer and curator who joined the Hirshhorn in 2014. As director, she has made the museum both radically aware and cozy, recently judging MTV The Exhibition: Finding the Next Great Artista reality-style competition filmed at the museum, where seven artists compete for the $100,000 prize and their own Hirshhorn show.

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The friendship of Balvin and Chiu was forged around Yoko Onoinstallation wish tree, an interactive sculpture in the Hirshhorn Garden, where visitors place white paper tags with their personal wishes on the branches of a Kousa Dogwood tree. Each spring, an artist hangs the first tag of the season, but in April 2021 Covid-19 restrictions meant the museum remained closed. “José and I have a mutual friend on the museum’s board of directors, the Colombian film and television producer Isaac Lee. [a Hirshhorn trustee who is the chief executive of Exile, a company promoting Spanish-language content and media companies]. We thought, ‘Let’s see if José would like to make his first wish virtually on Instagram?’” Chiu explains. With Ono’s permission, people were encouraged to share their hopes for the future with hashtags.

You don’t have to understand it, you just have to go see it and feel it.

“It was beautiful to introduce this world and the Hirshhorn to my followers, who perhaps didn’t know the art. It was a way to give hope and share love at a time when people really wanted this positive vibe,” says Balvin, who was born and raised in Medellín, Colombia, and broke into the mainstream as an artist in 2014 with the single “ 6 AM”, subsequently winning numerous plaudits, including five Latin Grammy Awards. Along the way, the superstar has openly shared her journey with anxiety and depression in an effort to destigmatize mental illness among Latino and Gen Z youth. Her message in Ono wish tree read: “I wish mental health for everyone, love and dreams” in both English and Spanish.

The artist has also put words into action to raise awareness on the issue, releasing in 2022 Hey– A bilingual wellness app aimed at teaching everyone, especially young people, to direct difficult emotions toward creative action. “I think being open to talking about it brings relief to a lot of kids who follow me and people who might be afraid to talk about mental health,” he says.

Balvin and Chiu finally met in person at the post-pandemic Hirshhorn, where the composer was captivated by the work of two contemporary artists. “Do you remember, José? We sat at Laurie Anderson’s long table…” Chiu recalls. The telephone table, part of Hirshhorn’s retrospective on artist Anderson, who electronically manipulates sound to create music with visual and auditory dimensions. “We both put our elbows in the grooves and our hands in our ears, and you could hear the sound of the music she created.”

Balvin agrees: “The way Anderson uses technology as part of his art was amazing,” he says. “But I also had the opportunity to be with Melissa and see how a museum works. The passion he has and how he really delves into the story of each artist is so beautiful. That’s why I love her and all the works that were there that day, because she explained every detail of what they wanted to express.”

During that visit, Yayoi Kusama‘s Rooms with infinity mirrors (specifically his groundbreaking work phallus field, 1965/2016, and one of his most recent pieces, My heart is dancing towards the universe, 2018) changed Balvin’s life. “It’s quite an experience. “The more you start to know about Kusama and the way she sees the world and her condition, and the place where she makes her art, the happier you feel when you see it, but there is also a lot of pain behind her work,” Balvin . says of the contemporary Japanese artist, who has lived and worked in a mental health facility since the 1970s. His countless patterns of polka dots, hallucinatory giant pumpkins and trifid flora embody his struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder and hallucinations, after a childhood trauma. However, his art also reflects a joy of spirit.

“We had the opportunity to see his most recent exhibition in New York, where he is building his sculptures and pumpkin works, and another room with infinity mirrors,” Chiu adds of Kusama’s gallery exhibition at David Zwirner, where the two met. They gathered again to contemplate their work and participate in our photo session.

“What impressed me the most is that I thought they were his old works, right?” Balvin says turning to Chiu. “Once Melissa told me it was new, I thought, ‘This woman is out of this world!’ Kusama continues to create and elevate his art, even though he suffers from a mental health problem. “She continues to express herself in such a magical way.”

But it was the couple’s initial meeting with Kusama at the Hirshhorn that inspired Chiu to ask the singer-songwriter to take on an ambassadorial role, helping the museum reach a new, younger audience. They bonded over Greek food at a downtown DC restaurant with a party that included artist Brian Donnelly, known as KAWS (whom Balvin featured as a 2022 Hirshhorn Ball Honored Artist in his sculpture garden, both attaching wishes to the tree de Ono), and Juan Carlos Pinzón. , the former Colombian ambassador to the United States.

“We knew it could speak to our audience in a different tone. We said, ‘Let’s focus on education,’” Chiu says. “And that’s how José’s Hirshhorn Eye videos [a  series of digital art guides bringing visitors face-to-face with artists] emerged, which we will release this fall. “They really are your guide to the artworks at the Hirshhorn.”

The Hirshhorn is unashamedly pro-social media and encourages taking photographs (without flash) and posting your work. Hirshhorn Eye (abbreviated as Hi), uses image recognition to scan artwork and streams audio from artists (including Jeff Koons, Lorna Simpson and Damien Hirst) as they reveal the stories behind the art. Balvin’s guide will be the first in the series offered in Spanish. “You point your phone at a work of art and then the video of José talking about the work appears,” explains Chiu.

The concept receives the approval of Balvin, whose new name for Chiu is boss, or boss: “You have the freedom to choose what you really like. That’s what I love about the Hirshhorn. We tell the kids to go there and have their own experience.”