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Exhibition view „Broken Music Vol. 2“, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, 17.12.2022-14.5.2023 © Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Thomas Bruns

Berlin Exhibition: Broken Music Vol. 2 – 70 Years of Records and Sound Works by artists

Fine Arts and music meet at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin with the special exhibition Broken Music Vol. 2 by the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museum of Berlin which commemorates more than 70 years of records and sound works by artists and looking at how they engaged with vinyl over seven decades.

Exhibition view “Broken Music Vol. 2“, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, 17.12.2022-14.5.2023 © Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Thomas Bruns

The history of vinyl records is a colourful one. As an object, the vinyl itself feels almost magical at times, fascinating in its inherent contradiction: a solid object which however contains disembodied sound. From very early on, artists realised the creative potential that records offer and turned them into artistic objects. They designed record sleeves for record labels and documented the sound of their compositions, performances, readings and installations in the grooves of the records. In doing so, they often viewed the acoustic content and the visual appearance of the records as one.

Broken Music Vol. 2, held at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin, opens until May 14th 2023, and explores the relationship between fine arts and vinyl by looking at artists’ engagement with this particular object over the past seven decades.

The exhibition, curated by the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart curators Sven Beckstette and Ingrid Buschmann, diplays over 700 records, showcased and arranged in ten chapters in order to explore the development of the record as an artistic medium from the post-war period to the present, drawing links with the fields of music in composition and improvisation, pop, punk and techno.

Broken Music Vol. 2 is the follow up to a previous exhibition that happened in Berlin in a crucial year. It was 1989 when Ursula Block, owner of the small yet world-famous record store ‘gelbe MUSIK’ (1981 – 2014), based in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, started the touring exhibition Broken Music. Artists’ Recordworks.

Hans Peter Kuhn, gelbe MUSIK, 1998  Installation Außenansicht Foto: Gerhard Kassner

It was the golden age of records. Music lovers and collectors would travel to Berlin specifically to visit Block’s gelbe MUSIK and get the best records. Ursula’s crowd also included influential artists and musicians such as John Cage, Yoko Ono, Sonic Youth and Björk.
When Broken Music. Artists’ Recordworks was presented in West Berlin, the exhibition was enthusiastically received by the public, and since then the vinyl record has been regarded as a key medium for the multifaceted exchange of art and music.

  1. Broken Music Vol. 2

    Milan Knizak, Broken Music, 1964 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022 © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / id3d-berlin

  2. Broken Music Vol. 2

    Gerwald Rockenschaub, It’s…, 2008 (Villa Magica Records)
    © Gerwald Rockenschaub
    © id3d-berlin

  3. Broken Music Vol. 2

    Yoko Ono, FLY, 1971 (Apple Records)
    Photo by John Lennon
    © Yoko Ono Lennon. Courtesy of Yoko Ono

  4. Broken Music Vol. 2

    Valie Export & Monsti Wiener, Wahre Freundschaft, 1978
    © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022
    © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / id3d-berlin

  5. Broken Music Vol. 2

    Jean Dubuffet, Musical Experiences, 1973
    © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022
    © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / id3d-berlin

Following this influential exhibition, Broken Music Vol. 2 brings the artist-vinyl relationship under the spotlight once more, featuring iconic covers by artists such as Andy Warhol and Barbara Kruger as well as intensive sound installations by Christina Kubisch and Susan Philipsz; recorded performances and readings from Anne Imhof to Jimmie Durham make the records come alive for a contemporary audience.

Exhibition view „Broken Music Vol. 2“, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, 17.12.2022-14.5.2023 © Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Thomas Bruns

Including spacious sound installations and immersive media works, the exhibition’s panorama is expanded by sound works from the National Gallery’s collection which managed to acquire an extensive collection of records from Ursula Block in 2019 with the help of the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung and the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung. Thanks to the support of the Friends of the National Gallery and numerous donations, this collection has now been expanded and updated.

Once a mass product, the record appeared to have been written off in the digital age, but it has never lost its fascination and today it is once again gaining growing popularity as a niche product and a collector’s item. In many ways, Broken Music Vol. 2 celebrates the resilience of the vinyl record. At the same time, the exhibition is also a tribute to all the artists and vinyl enthusiasts in Berlin and beyond who continue to be devoted to this object.