“Looks like Johnny’s going to be there, we picture him sitting up in bed!” Laeticia Hallyday, who came to Brussels to observe the preparations for the exhibition on the “idol of youth”, confesses that she was moved by the reconstruction of the star’s teenage bedroom.
Elvis album covers on the wall, a photo of Brigitte Bardot, a guitar, a record player, trinkets… Johnny’s room at his aunt’s house, at 13 rue de la Tour des Dames in Paris, It has been recreated as faithfully as possible, based on the available photos.
“It’s quite overwhelming,” acknowledges Laeticia, co-producer of the Johnny Hallyday exhibition to be held in Brussels from December, five years after the French rock icon’s demise. The traveling exhibition will then go to Paris, then to other cities in France, to “go meet people”, as Johnny did, he explains to AFP.
“I really wanted to continue giving life to his memory and his work, this project is a way of reviving him, of being closer to him, it is a journey through the entire history of his life”, adds Laeticia. In all facets of him: “the man, his fragility, his sensitivity, his humility, and the boundless artist that he was.”
“I have been doing this project for two years”
The spectacle and the intimate come together in this “immersive” exhibition of 3,000 m2, whose plan follows the shape of a guitar. The visitor will be guided by the voice of actor Jean Reno. A 360-degree video of concert excerpts will be screened in the center. The public will be able to admire around thirty stage costumes and around fifty guitars.
The study of Europe series 1 Hello friends from the 1960s, the singer’s office will also be reproduced in his house in Marnes-la-Coquette where he spent the last moments of his life, as well as the cinema that he had set up there.
“I have been carrying out this project for two years, I have been nourished by everything I have learned from it”, confesses Laeticia Hallyday, while the craftsmen are busy building the sets, in the workshop of the Brussels agency Tempora, organizer of the event.
“He loved Brussels”
“I think he would have been very proud of everything that has been done during these two years,” he continues. The traveling exhibition dedicated to David Bowie was a “source of inspiration”, Laeticia Hallyday explains again. She is also surrounded by Clémence Farrell, set designer for the Parisian version of the retrospective dedicated to the British star in 2015.
Why start the exhibition in Brussels? This is where the co-producers of the exhibition meet, emphasizes Laeticia. And then there is “a part of the story” of Johnny in Belgium, the country of his father, she adds. “He loved Brussels, when he got here it was really a party,” says former Johnny producer Jean-Claude Camus, who has a consulting role for the event.
It was also during a concert in Brussels that he and Johnny reconciled, after several years of estrangement. “I’m a bit like Johnny’s memory, I dated him for 35 years anyway! I bring my memories, I try to transcribe things exactly as they happened,” she explains.
“People are going to get closer to him … I think it’s good to bring all this back to the public. He occupied that place, for so long and above all others.”
More than three thousand tickets were sold in a few days for the Brussels exhibition, scheduled from December 20 to June 30, 2023, for which the organizers expect 175,000 tickets. The exhibition will be held in Paris, Porte de Versailles, starting in January 2024.
Source: BFM TV
