Can You Hear Me? Music Labels by Visual Artists is the first survey on the obscure and fascinating phenomenon of record labels founded and run by visual artists. It reflects on the way these extra-artistic activities contribute to redefining the role of the contemporary artist as a catalyst of intellectual energies and producer of cultural processes at large. Moreover, it tries to understand if and how these activities challenged the art world’s static and modern perception of art and art works.

Spanning 1980 to 2015, the project consists of a book and an exhibition that celebrate the contemporary artist as a multi-faceted producer of collaborative projects. The highlighted labels have released a dynamic spectrum of activities in and outside the art world and remained untouched by its unwritten capitalist code, attempting to develop alternative forms of cultural production and attract new audiences.

This project zooms in on 25 record labels from Europe, the United States and Mexico, touching upon their position in a wider tradition of independent music, art rock and artists’ mock enterprises; their performative features; their collective and participative nature; and the D.I.Y. ethos embodied in the production of records and ephemera. As a direct extension of the book, the exhibition presents original artworks, records, ephemera, videos, and rare archival treasures.

ARTISTS FEATURED
Carlos Amorales, Cory Arcangel, John Amrleder and Sylvie Fleury, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Johanna Billing, Matthew Brannon, Chicks on Speed, Paul B. Davis, Destroy All Monsters, Cali Thornhill Dewitt, Dexter Sinister, DJ Spooky, Chris Johanson, Mike Kelley, Kalup Linzy, Lucy McKenzie, Carsten Nicolai, Albert Oehlen. Daniel Pflumm, Seth Price, Pieter Schoolwerth, SUPERFLEX, Mika Tajima, Nico Vascellari, Andy Warhol, and Alex Waterman.

Curated by Francesco Spampinato

For the Exhibition I assembled a work entitled the 'BEIGE Records Visual Archive'. This was an archival artwork that dealt with materials generated by BEIGE, the record label/art collective I co-founded.

Printed Matter, New York, USA
Exhibition Dates: May 19 - June 12, 2016

Onomatopee, Eindhoven, NE
Exhibition dates: May 3 – May 23, 2015
Festival with book release: May 23, 2015

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/29059