Vinyl Records and Covers by Artists at MACBA-Spain

Written by Dorothy Thomson Monday, 13 June 2011 20:41

Barcelona, Spain - Historiography has overlooked the meetings between art and the world of sound, but these days they have taken on an undeniable centrality.  Artistic and musical practices have produced works which mark out the very history of the avant-garde.  Along with the huge growth in digital technology, crossovers between sound and vision have multiplied exponentially and this has created a whole new universe of experimentation, invention, categories and classifications.  In 2002, the MACBA looked at music culture in the digital age with the exhibition Sonic Process.  Now Vinyl traces the phenomenon’s genealogy, from its roots in the evolution of the art in the 1960s and 70s, right up to our own time, by means of an object which has always been deeply rooted in our everyday life: the LP record.  On exhibition until 3 September, 2006 at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA).

Vinyl Albums and Record Sleeves by Artists takes a look at one of the most traditional musical / sound media supports, now well on its way towards extinction.  Up to now, there have been very few exhibitions dealing with this area of creativity, The Record Cover as Artwork, in London in 1973, or Broken Music, in Berlin in 1988 being two rare exceptions.  The phonoautograph was invented in 1857, but it wasn’t until 1904 that the first two-sided vinyl records were commercially produced.   1987, the year which saw the invention of the digital compact disc marked the beginning of the end of vinyl as an instrument and means of communication.  Today it survives only in the hands of DJs, record collectors and those artists who still go back to that black plastic circle.

The origin of artistic practices in this area can be traced through the avant-garde movements – like Dada and Futurism – with artists like Kurt Schwitters, Raoul Hausmann or Marcel Duchamp.  Groups like Fluxus, CoBrA or the Lettrists made full use of the medium.  From the 1970s onwards, collaborations between musicians and visual artists diversified, representing a range of languages and fashions, from experimental music or sound documents to the most commercial kinds of pop and rock music.

Structure of the Exhibition at the MACBA

The MACBA exhibition will be divided into different sections following various chronological and visual criteria, covering everything from the 1920s avant-garde movements up to the most recent sound experiments, via movements like Fluxus, Nouveau Réalisme, Pop Art and conceptual art.  There will be around 750 record sleeves from Guy Schraenen’s collection, by artists like John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Günter Brus, William Burroughs, Jean Dubuffet, Robert Frank, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Hamilton, Keith Haring, Yves Klein, Fernand Léger, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, Hermann Nitsch, A.R. Penck, Raymond Pettibon, Pistoletto, Gerhard Richter, Dieter Roth, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselman, among others.  The show also contains a great deal of additional material (cassettes, publications and other documentation) and visitors will have the chance to listen to the exhibition’s wide selection of more than a thousand records through a digital system especially designed for the occasion.

A section dedicated to collaborations between artists and musicians in Spain – curated by Víctor Nubla, working with Joan Ramon Guzmán, Jordi Segura and Pedro G. Romero – completed the MACBA exhibition, containing some 150 record sleeves.

Visit the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) at : www.macba.es/