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DURHAM — Sometime circa 1990, the vinyl record — both the 12-inch and 7-inch 45 rpm varieties — was declared dead as the compact disc and later digital downloads became the preferred way of listening to music.
Twenty years later, interest in vinyl is undergoing a resurgence. In April, retailers locally and nationally observed Record Store Day, and some local music labels issued limited-edition vinyl records to mark the occasion. Rolling Stone magazine recently offered advice on buying a new turntable.
Visual artists, however, “have never abandoned the record,” said Trevor Schoonmaker, curator of contemporary art at the Nasher Museum, who chose the works for “The Record: Contemporary Vinyl and Art,” a new exhibit at The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The exhibit, which opens this week, examines the way visual artists — both known and lesser-known — have been inspired and have used the vinyl medium. The exhibit has works by 41 artists from around the world, from the mid-1960s to the present.
“The Record” is not an exhibit of original artwork and the accompanying record covers that listeners may remember. The closest visitors will see to that kind of display is musician and artist David Byrne’s montage of Polaroid snapshots that became the cover of the Talking Heads’ “More Songs About Buildings and Food.”
“The idea is not to have it be a one-to-one relationship with album covers,” said Schoonmaker. Rather, the exhibit explores how the record has been a “transformative object,” and how artists have used it — often metaphorically — he said during a recent walk-through of the exhibit, which was being installed last week. Visual artists “have never abandoned the record,” because it “contains social content beyond the music and the grooves,” Schoonmaker said.
Looking at the Byrne piece, Schoonmaker points out how “you can see the hand” at work in the placement of the Polaroids. A desire to return to that pre-digital tactile sense — particularly the handling of records — has helped drive the new interest in vinyl records, he said.
“For many of us, this was our very first engagement with visual art,” Schoonmaker said. “The record is so personal. ... and that’s what we’re trying to articulate in this show.”
Schoonmaker surveyed 300 works of art during three years of research, with the idea of getting what he called the “cornerstones” as well as lesser known pieces. Visitors can approach the exhibit in multiple ways (“All you have to do is give people a hook,” Schoonmaker said).
One of the cornerstones is the work of Christian Marclay, whose highly conceptual work explores listeners’ relationship to records and their sounds. One of Marclay’s works in this show, “Record Players,” is a five-minute video in which people “play” records without a stylus, as well as bend, break, even step on the discs. In addition to Byrne’s piece, other major artists whose work is in this exhibit are violinist and artist Laurie Anderson’s “Viophonograph,” photographed by Bob Bielecki, and Jasper Johns’ “Scott Fagan Record,” an ink on mylar drawing inspired by Scott Fagan’s album “South Atlantic Blues.”
One of the lesser-known artists is Mingering Mike of Washington, D.C., whose work was discovered in 2003 by two record collectors. From 1968 to 1977, he created “fake” vinyl record covers, and paper facsimiles of 12-inch and 7-inch records, complete with song titles and imaginary artists. He “created an alternate universe for himself,” Schoonmaker said. Among his rare (and now fragile) items in this show are two albums by The Outsiders, a band Mingering Mike created, titled “Mercy the World” and “The Outsiders are Back.”
Being able to display Mingering Mike’s art with that of Byrne and other artists offers viewers one of many “unlikely juxtapositions” in this exhibit, Schoonmaker said.
He pointed out one such grouping. Near the Mingering Mike display is a group of black and white photographic portraits by Malick Sidibé of Mali. Sidibé’s subjects pose with albums by James Brown, the Beatles, and other artists. The photos, taken during the same time Mike was doing his art, connotes how records were a prime connection among people throughout the world, Schoonmaker said. Sidibé’s subjects “are really projecting who they are by posing with these records, just at Mike was picturing who he wanted to be” in his works, he said.
Other connections can be left to the viewer. For example, artist Mark Soo’s two photographs (to be viewed with 3-D glasses) titled “That’s That’s Alright Alright Mama Mama” depicts analog recording equipment, and is meant to evoke Elvis Presley’s groundbreaking recording session at Sam Phillips’ Sun Records studio. Also in this exhibit is Sean Duffy’s “Burn Out Sun,” a sculpture made from records from the Sun label. A viewer can explore the labels on the records, by artists like Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, and ponder their history.
Such discoveries are central to this exhibit. “One of the most important elements is the sense of discovery that is involved,” Schoonmaker said. “I think the works individually capture that feeling [and] collectively as a whole.”
