Artcoustics, The Stories Told by Record Covers

The catalogue to the exhibition Artcoustics, The Stories Told by Record Covers presents record sleeves as the sort of artwork that has left a definitive mark on the visual image of contemporary urban culture. The exhibition featured records and their covers as a phenomenon that reveals the commercial, class, sexual and ideological parameters of the twentieth-century world. The first section of the exhibition featured the development of audio media from shellacs, singles, LPs and cassettes to compact discs, as well as various forms of record packaging and the different ways records have been used. The second section showcased the colourful world of the record sleeve in the form designed during the twentieth century by visual artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Jean Dubuffet, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Beuys, Raymond Pettibon, Jože Slak-Đoka, Bogdan Borčić, Matjaž Vipotnik, Bronislav Fajon, Laibach, Kostja Gatnik, Slavko Furlan, Tadej Pogačar, Ediscroato, Marko Ilić, Jugoslav Vlahović and many others. The third section analyzed record covers with regard to their design and their social and political implications. The show aimed to present the stereotypical designs that embedded themselves in jazz, rock, punk, classical music, popular folk music, etc., and examine the content of record covers that attempted to broach various social and political issues and arose as a product of different music subcultures and their distribution networks in Slovenia and abroad. Finally, the exhibition spoke of the fact that the many private and public record collections represent the most prevalent and globally dispersed collections of twentieth century art and visual culture.

The show was organized in collaboration with Radio Slovenia and Radio Študent. The exhibition was curated by Nikolai Jeffs, Guy Schraenen and Božidar Zrinski. Expert advice was provided by Ičo Vidmar, Polona Poberžnik, Jure Matičič and Branko Kostelnik. The catalogue received the Award of Excellence and was the finalist in the category of Catalogues and Monographs of the Brumen Foundation in 2007; designed by ID Studio.