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Music Features

Wax Museum

Cringe worthy

By CARLY CARIOLI | April 20, 2011

If you don't cringe, at least a little bit and maybe a lot, when you see Sean Duffy's Burn Out Sun (2003) — a sculptural starburst of crisscrossing LPs bearing the immortal Sun Records label — then you probably aren't much of a record fan. Ah, there's the rub: Duffy's finished piece may mean the most to the exact audience that will be horrified by the thought of taking a dozen rare rockabilly records off the market just so some genius can make a pretty point. Creative destruction isn't the only tension driving "The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl" — a production of Duke University's Nasher Museum that opens this week at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art — but it may be the strongest. It's the animating force behind vinyl enthusiast Dave Tompkins's essay, excerpted from "The Record" 's equally impressive catalogue — and it's a theme that runs through some of the exhibit's trademark pieces, including Christian Marclay's LP-based dismemberment plan, Recycled Records (1983). Thankfully, there aren't actually many record covers in "The Record" — unless you count the seven-foot Polaroid collage that became the front panel of Talking Heads' More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978). But there's no way of looking at the ICA show, a walk through contemporary art's wax museum, without coming back to your favorites. That's why "The Record" also adds a piece called "Cover to Cover," in which eight artists pick their favorite albums for you to play with — and why we asked Tompkins to dig through his fire crate for eight LP sleeves that will bring you to your knees.

Topics: Music Features , Institute of Contemporary Art, Christian Marclay, vinyl, More

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ARTICLES BY CARLY CARIOLI

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NEWTON'S NEW ART CENTER EXPOSES HEAVY METAL FROM WITHIN | August 24, 2011
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DOING IT NINJA STYLE | April 22, 2011
Take three notorious singer-songwriters and one famous author. Give them eight hours to write and record an eight-song album. Broadcast the session on the internet. Release the album online the next morning, and perform it live in front of an audience the following night.