Broken Music Vol. 2 picks up where Ursula Block's groundbreaking 1989 exhibition left off, tracing the vinyl record as an artistic medium across seven decades — from post-war composition through punk, techno, and into the expanded field of sound art.
About This Book
The record is not merely a delivery mechanism for music — in the hands of artists, it becomes object, score, and statement. This second volume extends the legacy of Block's original Broken Music exhibition and publication, drawing on sound works from the Nationalgalerie's collection to map the intersections of art and music across composition, improvisation, pop, punk, and techno. The result is a serious survey of artist recordworks that resists easy categorisation, placing figures such as Richard Serra and Lawrence Weiner alongside Charlemagne Palestine and Tauba Auerbach. Essential reading for those working across sound art, experimental music, and contemporary art history.
Key Features
- 248 pages of essays, artist documentation, and full-colour record artwork reproductions
- Edited by Sven Beckstette, Ingrid Buschmann, and Gabriele Knapstein
- Featured artists include Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, Tauba Auerbach, Harry Bertoia, Martin Creed, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Romuald Hazoumé, Christina Kubisch, Hermann Nitsch, Charlemagne Palestine, Viktor Vasarely, Lawrence Weiner, and others
- Published by Walther König, Köln, 1989
What You'll Discover
- How the vinyl record was transformed from commercial format into autonomous artistic medium across the post-war period and into the present
- The connections between avant-garde composition, Fluxus-adjacent practices, and later movements in pop, punk, and techno as reflected through artist recordworks
- The depth of the Nationalgalerie's sound art collection, with works spanning sculpture, performance, and recorded media
- The curatorial logic linking disparate artists — from minimalist sculptors to new wave musicians — through their shared engagement with the record as form
About the Author
[Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 248
- Dimensions: 24 x 24 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783753306872
- Publisher: Walther König, Köln
- Publication Date: 1989
Perfect For: Sound artists, experimental music researchers, contemporary art curators, and collectors interested in the intersection of visual art and recorded sound.