Art & Vinyl: Artists & the Record Album from Picasso to the Present

Curated by Antoine de Beaupré, the exhibition examines the record as a medium for original art.

Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present Art & Vinyl, an exhibition examining the ways in which artists have been drawn to records and their covers as mediums for original works of art. Comprised of more than one hundred often rare and important examples, this will be the first in-depth exhibition to focus on works of art created specifically for an album, composer or musician.

Andy Warhol, Giant Size $1.57 Each [Interviews with Artists Participating in The Popular Image exhibition at The Washington Gallery of Modern Art], 1963
record album
Cy Twombly, Ma l’amore No by Lucio Amelio, 1990
record album

The exhibition begins with Pablo Picasso’s depiction of a white dove, printed directly onto the surface of Paul Robeson’s Songs of Peace in 1949, and continues with works by artists as wide-ranging as Josef Albers, Tauba Auerbach, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joseph Beuys, Sophie Calle, Jean Dubuffet, Marlene Dumas, Yves Klein, Barbara Kruger, Sol LeWitt, Chris Ofili, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol. Included are works by supreme outliers such as Richard Hamilton, whose indelible un-artwork forever defined The Beatles’ white album; Christian Marclay, whose non-sleeve allowed his Record Without a Cover to accumulate a lifetime of scratches; and Gerhard Richter, whose 1984 oil painting on the surface of Glenn Gould’s revered Goldberg Variations leaves Bach’s composition see-able but forever unplayable.

Gerhard Richter, Goldberg-Variationen (Butin 060), 1984
oil on vinyl record

The exhibition will be accompanied by a 464-page hardcover catalogue, available in the gallery and on our website in January 2018, and distributed internationally by D.A.P.

Works on View

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