Art & Vinyl from Picasso to the present

Pablo Picasso’s depiction of a white dove, printed directly onto the surface of Paul Robeson’s Songs of Peace in 1949, is the artwork choose to begin the exhibition Art & Vinyl, at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco through March 3.

The exhibition examining the ways in which artists have been drawn to records and their covers as mediums for original works of art from the mid-20th century to the present. Comprised of more than one hundred often rare and important examples, this is the first in-depth exhibition to focus on works of art created specifically for an album, composer or musician.

Art & Vinyl includes works by artists as wide-ranging as Josef Albers, Tauba Auerbach, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joseph Beuys, Sophie Calle, Jean Dubuffet, Marlene Dumas, Yves Klein, Barbara Kruger, Sol LeWitt, Chris Ofili, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol.

Also you can see works by supreme outliers such as Richard Hamilton, whose indelible un-artwork forever defined The Beatles’ white album; Christian Marclay, whose non-sleeve allowed his Record Without a Cover to accumulate a lifetime of scratches; and Gerhard Richter, whose 1984 oil painting on the surface of Glenn Gould’s revered Goldberg Variations leaves Bach’s composition see-able but forever unplayable.

The exhibition is accompanied by a book’s release of the same name exploring over 200 LPs.