Lil Buck at Fondation Louis Vuitton
 

NOWNESS and Fondation Louis Vuitton are delighted to present Lil Buck at Fondation Louis Vuitton, a film by Andrew Margetson that captures the Memphis jooker’s first improv dance inside a museum.

Commissioned to celebrate the landmark exhibition, Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection (22 October 2015-20 February 2016), the film traces Lil Buck’s moves as he responds through dance to the iconic architecture of the Fondation, and the artworks of modern masters Picasso and Matisse.

The director, Andrew Margetson, says of his inspiration for the film: “With this film, I want to create something with impact, to shoot him in a different way. To put together in a film the unique talent of Buck with the unique architecture of the Fondation Louis Vuitton is tantalising. And it provoked me to want to feature the exterior of the building as well as the interior.”

Set to an original composition by Euvgueni Galperine and Sacha Galperine, we begin with close-ups of the dancer’s fluid hand moves and balletic steps. Following his delicate movement through the exhibition galleries, the film builds to a climactic encounter with Picasso’s masterpiece Trois Femmes.

Margetson says: “What I love about this project is that it gives us a new way of seeing Buck. Rather than being outsiders looking in, we’re now positioned alongside him, going on a journey into the heart of the iconic building with him.”

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International phenomenon Lil Buck began jookin’ – a street dance that originated in Memphis – at age 13 alongside mentors Marico Flake and Daniel Price. After receiving early hip-hop training from Teran Garry and ballet training on scholarship at the New Ballet Ensemble, he performed and choreographed until relocating to Los Angeles in 2009. Named one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch, his collaboration with Spike Jonze and Yo-Yo Ma performing The Swan went viral in 2011. This opened the door to collaborating with a broad range of renowned artists ranging from Janelle Monae to JR and the New York City Ballet to Madonna. Buck is a vocal advocate of arts education with a firm belief that art facilitates the learning of everything else.

Andrew Margetson is an award-winning director of commercials. He has created memorable spots for many of the world's top brands including Canon, Sony, Nike, Coca Cola, Alfa Romeo, Vodafone, Renault, Nintendo, Pepsi, Skoda and BBC. In 2014 Margetson made his first short film, Help Point, which played at over 50 festivals, won ten awards and is currently being distributed internationally.

In 2015 Margetson was commissioned by Nowness to make the short profile Portrait of a Dancer: Lauren Cuthbertson. It has had more than 8 million views on Facebook alone, been screened at over 20 festivals, and won three festival awards. Lil Buck at Fondation Louis Vuitton is Margetson’s second film for Nowness.

NOWNESS 

NOWNESS is a global video channel screening the best in culture. Launched in 2010, NOWNESS’s unique programming strategy has established it as the go-to source of inspiration across art, design, fashion, beauty, music, food, and travel. Our curatorial expertise and award-winning approach to storytelling is unparalleled. We work with exceptional talent, and both established and emerging filmmakers which connect our audience to emotional and sensorial stories designed to provoke inspiration and debate.

Fondation Louis Vuitton

Created in 2006 on the initiative of Bernard Arnault, the LVMH group and its Houses, the Fondation Louis Vuitton marks a new stage in the sponsorship policy of the LVMH group and its associates. Its iconic building, designed by Frank Gehry, comprises eleven galleries dedicated to collection hangs, permanent and temporary exhibitions and works commissioned to a series of artists, including Ellsworth Kelly, Olafur Eliasson, and Adrian Villar Rojas.

The exhibition Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection, curated by Anne Baldessari, pays tribute to one of the greatest art patrons of the early twentieth century, Sergei Shchukin, the visionary Russian collector of French modern art. As Anne Baldassari, states, Shchukin’s collection "remains little know to the general western public even today. In fact, since it was broken up in 1948 it has never been gathered as a singular and coherent artistic entity." 

Thanks to the generous participation of the Hermitage Museum and the Pushkin Museum, which greatly contributed to the conception of the project, the exhibition presents 130 masterpieces by impressionist, post-impressionist and modern masters from the Shchukin Collection including works by Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin, Monet, Cézanne, Le Douanier Rousseau, Degas, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Renoir and many others.