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Conceptual artist Shia LaBeouf runs around Amsterdam museum
Continuing his bizarre venture into the realm of conceptual art, actor Shia LaBeouf donned a lime-green tanktop and purple leggings for a jog around Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum last week.
The “Transformers” star appeared intently focused and ignored questions from journalists as he stretched before starting his #metamarathon around the modern art museum.
“The run around the museum is a performance by Shia and two other artists who were invited by the Stedelijk Museum in the context of a symposium we are currently holding inside,” the museum’s public programme curator Hendrik Folkerts explained.
The museum was hosting a conference about how the world is perceived by a generation born in the 1980s, bombarded by omnipresent social media and the cult of celebrity, Folkerts said.
The 12-hour symposium entitled #metamodernism is being attended by 600 artists, philosophers and thinkers from around the world.
“As we are having a ‘marathon’ conference inside the Stedelijk, we also wanted a reflection of that outside. Nobody can do it better than Shia and the other artists at this performance," Folkerts said.
Last Thursday’s performance by the 28-year-old LaBoeuf follows a string of outlandish appearances, including when he walked out of a press conference at the Berlin International Film Festival after quoting French footballer Eric Cantona’s infamous allegory about the media.
“When seagulls follow the trawler it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea,” he said.
He later appeared on the red carpet for the premier of director Lars von Trier’s film “Nymphomaniac” wearing a paper bag over his head with “I am not famous anymore” written on it.
In February, LaBeouf participated in a live gallery installation in Los Angeles titled “#iamsorry” in which the actor wore a paper bag over his head while sitting at a table. The gallery event was also a collaboration between the actor and Ronkko and Turner.
LaBeouf was arrested in New York in June for disrupting a performance of the Broadway musical “Cabaret”. He later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
His newest movie is the World War II drama “Fury”, in which he costars alongside Brad Pitt as part of a crew of American soldiers in tanks behind enemy lines in Europe.
