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The art world might have descended on Italy this past week for the 55th Venice Biennale, but nothing in the Piazza San Marco or in the museums or galleries will startle like Bestival's secret weapon this September – a grande tête to compete with any festival big top or heady work of art coming at you over the summer. You can stick the opulence of the Fondazione Prada where the sun don't shine – the music festival and fancy-dress party at Robyn Park, the Isle of Wight, is where it's at, and if Elton John and Snoop Dogg are not big enough draws to ensure you'll be sailing in cramped conditions with a bunch of ersatz seamen from Southampton docks, then how about the massive cranium of a former Commodores legend?
Lionel Richie's Head has been added to the bill this year, and Hungry Castle – the Barcelona-based artists who want to take a giant balloon sculpture of said head to the festival – even have a Kickstarter campaign (their failed previous bid alerted curator Rob da Bank to their plight, and voila! they were added to the bill). It's based on a notorious bust of Lionel that appears at the apex of the Hello video, and some say they've created a monster. But what lurks inside the monstrosity? As we all know, nature abhors a vacuum – so here are six things I'd like to see inside Lionel Richie's head.
A sculpture class
Hello was a No 1 single in the UK in 1984, and it occurred to nobody at the time that it might have spawned the creepiest narrative in the history of pop video. Lionel seemingly stalks a blind art student he's infatuated with, makes silent phone calls, follows her in corridors and looks generally ready to rip up the strict teacher/student code. The media didn't even use the term "stalker" until around the time of the tragic Rebecca Schaeffer case in 1989, meaning Lionel was merely regarded as a benign prowler by the record-buying public. We're all a lot wiser now. Many people making clay heads of Lionel, inside his head, will raise awareness about obsessive behaviour, and help take the power out of it – like Lenny Bruce using the "N" word.
People dancing on the ceiling
Another of Lionel's big hits in the 80s was Dancing On the Ceiling. For anyone under 30, Lionel sang: "Whoa oh, what a feeling/ When you're dancing on the ceiling." Wouldn't it be nice if they could suspend gravity inside Lionel's head so people could do just that and boogie all night long upside down? And revellers could answer a questionnaire as they leave in order to quantify how profound that feeling actually was (they might just feel sick from all the blood rushing to their heads).
Commodores' Wall
A Commodores' Wall would commemorate fallen members of the much-loved American soul band of the 70s and 80s – who gave Lionel his big break – in much the same way the Communards' Wall in Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris, commemorates the 147 fédérés who were shot and thrown in a trench in 1871. Thus far only keyboardist Milan Williams has died, so it doesn't need to be a big wall.
More Lionel Richie Heads
Wouldn't it be neat if Lionel Richie's Head was the biggest in a family of other smaller-but-identical Lionel Richie heads, a bit like Russian matryoshka dolls? Although it might quell any potential interactive fun.
Nicole Richie
Lionel's late R&B contemporary Michael Jackson has been in the news again because of his daughter Paris, who is said to be recovering following a failed suicide attempt. One would like to see Nicole Richie in Lionel Richie's Head, so we'd all be able to see her and have peace of mind that she's doing OK. Just for our benefit really.
The inside of Lionel Richie's actual head
It would be a diversion like no other if Bestival-goers could ride Lionel's wet tongue, bathe in blue saliva like the geothermal Blue Lagoon spa experience in Iceland, and enjoy a cocktail while looking dreamily at the roof of Lionel's mouth and perhaps a cutaway section of his brains.
What would you like to see in Lionel Richie's Head?
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