the Art Rock festival celebrates its 40th anniversary in Saint-Brieuc

The Art Rock festival is celebrating its 40th anniversary from Friday May 26 in Saint-Brieuc with a special edition until Sunday. It is a question of paying homage to its glorious past because this festival has welcomed big names like Miles Davis, Sonic Youth or Public Enemy and also to salute its ability to turn resolutely towards the future.

>> Art Rock: “A talent scout festival” for the mayor of Saint-Brieuc Hervé Guihard

For this anniversary, the programmer of Art Rock, Alice Boinet, knew that something special had to be imagined. “It’s a festival with a fairly impressive history. Few festivals are 40 years old in France. This story of a multidisciplinary festival in the city center is very rare. We wanted to pay tribute to this story”she explains.

Throughout the weekend, there will therefore be concerts and headliners like Benjamin Biolay. As every year, there will also be all kinds of visual, digital, living arts and major events with artists who have marked the festival, who have always been well established in Saint-Brieuc.

“I am thinking in particular of Christine and the Queens who came in 2015recalls Alice Boinet. I am also thinking of Editors or Benjamin Biolay. Finally, I am obviously thinking of Philippe Decouflé, the choreographer who has marked the history of the festival since the 1980s by coming seven times and who will return to present his new show. We are also looking to the future, it is characteristic of Art Rock to bet on groups that we have not yet seen everywhere in the festivals, that the general public will get to know during these three days of festival in Saint-Brieuc”.

Zaho de Sagazan, Confidence Man or even BB Jacques

Among the novelties this year, spectators will hear the irresistible rhythms of the Marseillais from Social Dance, the hard-hitting punk of Astereotypie, the Caribbean horizons of David Walters, or even the elegant flow of rapper Prince Waly. The latter also has questions that constantly inhabit him: “I always wonder if my music really fits into the current landscape. I’m always afraid that people don’t understand at all where I want to take the music, that they don’t enter my universe”.

It is by relying on artists like Prince Waly who question themselves, who question themselves that Art Rock has survived hands down for 40 years, with this fierce desire not to rest on its laurels and to force always more astonishment and discovery.