This exhibit seems to be complimentary to a recent revelation by Neil Young that Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs preferred Vinyl. Like Young, some artists also prefer the medium.
The Miami Art Museum (MAM) will soon kick off a season dedicated to exploring the culture of vinyl records within the history of contemporary art with The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, a mixed media group exhibition on view at MAM from March 18 to June 10, 2012. Bringing together artists from around the world who have worked with records as their subject or medium, this ground‐breaking exhibition examines the record’s transformative power from the 1960s to the present.
Featuring sound work, sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, photography, video and performance, The Record incorporates a comprehensive range of artistic styles and media, combining audio with visual and fine art with popular culture. The exhibition takes a highly international and inter‐generational approach, featuring 99 works by 41 artists, including rising stars in the contemporary art world (William Cordova, Robin Rhode, Dario Robleto), outsider artists (Mingering Mike) and established artists (Ed Ruscha, Carrie Mae Weems). It includes several artists whose work will be shown in a U.S. museum for the first time (Kevin Ei‐ichi deForest, Jeroen Diepenmaat, Taiyo Kimura, Lyota Yagi).
“Vinyl records belong to the category of objects that have managed to play particularly significant roles in cultural history. They have established themselves firmly within the cultural consciousness, across generational and geographic boundaries,” says MAM Associate Curator Rene Morales. “This exhibition is an homage to a technology that has enriched our lives, expressed through the work of diverse artists who share a deep love for vinyl.”
- Malick Sidibé, “Animateur des Beatles á Bolibana, 25 Mar. 1967” (Disc Jockey at Beatles in Bolibana),1967/2008. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
The Record includes a wide range of works, such as a hybrid violin and record player, Viophonograph, a seminal work by Laurie Anderson; David Byrne’s original life‐sized Polaroid photomontage used for the cover of the 1978 Talking Heads album More Songs About Buildings and Food; a monumental column of vinyl records by Cordova; and an early work by Robleto, who transformed Billie Holiday records into hand‐painted buttons through an alchemic process. Works by Christian Marclay, who has made art with records for 30 years, include his early and rarely seen Recycled Records as well as his most recent record video, Looking for Love. Museum visitors will also be able to listen to a series of guest curated album crates, with music selected by leading music and art figures.
According to Trevor Schoonmaker, who organized The Record as curator of contemporary art at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, this exhibition “imagines the record as a lens through which artists view the world, and demonstrates art’s singular ability to reveal the extraordinary, the elemental power of everyday objects by transforming them into something new.”
Urban Art & Antiques 