The Limit was Mexican artist Laureana Toledo's addition to Art Sheffield 05, named after the cult Sheffield nightclub which closed in 1992. Taking four famous Mexican musicians and forming a fake band named The Limit, they played Sheffield venues and covers of Sheffield bands.
The context of the event was 'Spectator T', a fictitious art goer without exposure to contemporary aesthetics, and the idea was to present artworks that would challenge this person's preconceived ideas about art. Thus, Toledo created a cover band that sang songs by local Sheffield groups, and named it after the cult Sheffield nightclub, The Limit, which closed in 1992. The band was created in Mexico - with musicians from four of the best known bands in the Mexican rock scene - where it played one local concert, then came to Sheffield, where it played two shows before disbanding. "As a response to the commission of doing a piece of art in Sheffield addressed to an imaginary spectator that hates art, I decided to put together a cover band that would only play covers from bands from Sheffield - Pulp, Def Leppard, Human League, ABC, Joe Cocker and the Arctic Monkeys. The line up would be a very simple one: drums, guitar, bass, and a singer who played a little electronic piano. The band is named after a cult club in Sheffield, where most of the original bands had played, and that shut its doors in 1992; its members are musicians from four of the most important groups from the Mexican rock scene - Bengala, Zoé, DiscoRuido and Café Tacvba. Very few people in England know of these bands. People in Mexico know lots of Sheffield bands (and from Birmingham, and from Manchester, and from Bristol..). Disguised as a 30 minute fan documentary, and accompanied by the publication of an artist book disguised as a magazine, The Limit investigates how information and pop culture are digested, how colonialism is still activating our fantasies and expectations, and how the secondary role of women around rock bands is funnily reversed." Like most of Toledo's work, The Limit appropriates and reinterprets a pre-existing entity. With this volume, Toledo continues to play with the idea of authorship by pirating an already iconic magazine layout -The Face - and turning it into a labyrinth of information that leaves the reader unsure if he or she is reading about music, a band's story, an artist, Mexico or even just pop culture. Contributors to this volume include Eduardo Abaroa, Frances Richard, Monica de la Torre, Gavin Wade, David Byrne, Catherine Lampert, Cuauhtemoc Medina, Pablo Vargas Lugo and Dr. Lakra, among others.
