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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.

Catherine Opie and 'The Record' at the ICA
Catherine Opie first became known in the early '90s for blunt lesbian self-portraits and posed photos of the queer community.
The Boston Cyberarts Fest needs a reboot
It's a quiet morning along the Rose Kennedy Greenway when I meet Mark Skwarek — a shaggy-haired New Yorker in a Spider-Man T-shirt and Puma sneakers — to check out his latest project, Occupation Forces.
Review: Shepard Fairey + Z-Trip + Chuck D
So Shepard Fairey actually made it this time. No insane, last-minute sting operations by Boston cops lurking just off the ICA’s property line. But also: no grand dramatics, either. (Like, he totally could have parachuted through a shattered skylight. In slow motion.) Fairey just showed up and did his thing.
The Floordlords celebrate 30 years
B-boys — b-girls had scant presence on this program — have gone commercial, but today's freestyle breaking technique builds on moves cut three decades ago (although a grainy Floordlords video indicates that the current generation has discarded stirrup pants for profanity-laced t-shirts).
Slideshow: Chunky Move at ICA
The Australian troupe Chunky Move performed its 2004 work I Want to Dance Better at Parties at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art from March 27 to 29.
Photos: Black Moth Super Rainbow at ICA
Photos of Black Moth Super Rainbow's performance at the ICA
Photos: Summer Reunion: Alumni of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company at the ICA
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company presents an alumni reunion show at the ICA theater on July 15, 2011.
Photos: Swoon Art Wall at the ICA
The Institute of Contemporary Art hosts a long-term art wall installation by Swoon, a.ka. Caledonia Curry.
Swoon takes her street art to the ICA 'Wall'
Part punk-rock activist, part classically trained artist, Swoon, a/k/a Caledonia Curry, has sailed the Mississippi with a merry gang on homemade rafts and created earthquake-resistant structures for Haiti.
Slideshow: ''Eva Hesse Studiowork'' at the ICA; Tory Fair's ''Testing a World View (Again)'' at the deCordova
This slideshow accompanies Greg Cook's review of "Eva Hesse Studiowork" at the ICA through October 10, 2011, and Tory Fair's “Testing a World View (Again)" at the deCordova Sculpture Park through April 29, 2012.
Eva Hesse at the ICA and Tory Fair at the deCordova
Hesse's ability to imbue her art with body and blood and gravity anticipated the kinder, gentler minimalism of today's Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, and Roni Horn, as well as the fleshy fairy-tale figures of Kiki Smith. Boston sculptor Tory Fair has descended from Smith's family tree, with glossy resin or lumpy rubber casts of her own nude body uncannily sprouting vines and flowers.
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Topics: Music Features , Institute of Contemporary Art, Christian Marclay, vinyl, More

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