Shia LaBeouf runs art project around Stedelijk Museum

By Emma Rapaport on September 25, 2014 - 16:36

After announcing his intentions to run a (#meta)marathon around Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum on Twitter last week, American film-actor-turned-artist Shia LeBeouf ran 144 laps around the museum in collaboration with artists Luke Turner and Nastja Säde Rönkkö, joined by local fans.

As a small crowd of confused reporters and teenage girls gathered to watch the start, LeBeouf came running around the corner of the museum dressed in a striped tank top, skin tight purple lycra leggings, and hot pink shoes. Without a word to the onlookers, LeBeouf proceeded to complete some exercise stretches on the ground, before running past museum curator Hendrik Folkerts, seated on a white chair at the starting gates.

Volunteers who elected to participate with Shia on his #metamarathon were instructed to wait in line and were given a choice to either Run with Shia, Run for Shia, or Make Shia run, before receiving a commemorative sash.

Speaking with two eager fans on the sidelines, they explained that after seeing the announcement on Facebook they had come down specifically to run with Shia. While neither understood the concept of the event, or the meaning of the phrase “metamodernism”, both were teeming with excitement.

“I didn’t know what was going on or when it started," she explained without giving her name. “It said the event was going from eleven in the morning so I wasn’t sure if he’d be running all day, but I’ve come down anyway with my camera hoping to get a close shot. I still don’t know what the purpose is exactly but it’s been fun”.

Round and round and round he went, sometimes picking up fans who were instructed to hold the baton with him, or running on the spot when a fan opted to “Run for Shia”. The actor refused to take questions and completed the entire marathon in silence.

LaBeouf’s ‘metamarathon’ took place as part of the Stedelijk’s Metamodernism: the return of history. The symposium seeks to draw a cognitive map of our present in order to grasp the changing contours of our everyday lives.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSMJKb_iVk4 Running with Shia LaBeouf around the Stedelijk Museum, Sept. 25, 2014 (Video: NL Times/ Emma Rapaport)

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