Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco: Art & Vinyl: Artists & the Record Album from Picasso to the Present

Art & Vinyl: Artists & the Record Album from Picasso to the Present
Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
4 January - 3 March, 2018

GERHARD RICHTER 

Goldberg-Variationen (Butin 060), 1984

Oil on vinyl record

Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco 

Fraenkel Gallery presents 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. Seen together, the albums span seven decades and a staggering array of conceptual strategies, and sketch an idiosyncratic history of art from the mid-20th century to the present.

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 seeable but forever unplayable.

Art & Vinyl has been curated by Antoine de Beaupré, a hardcore music lover, author of Total Records, and founder of Librarie 213, a Paris bookshop specializing in rare and out-of-print books.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 464-page hardcover catalogue, available at the gallery or on the Fraenkel Gallery's website and distributed internationally by D.A.P.

Fraenkel Gallery
49 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94108
www.fraenkelgallery.com