images for sounds == artist covers for music records

PRIVATE VIEW
Wednesday 23 February 2022
5–9pm

VILLA LONTANA
Via Cassia 53, Roma
villalontana.it — Instagram

Rita Ackermann, Josef Albers, Kai Althoff, Andreco, Tauba Auerbach, Irma Blank, Sylvano Bussotti, Francesco Clemente, David Kennedy Cutler, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Matteo Fato, Reverend Howard Finster, Urs Fischer, Luigi Ghirri, Piero Golia, Delia Gonzalez, Keith Haring, Mike Kelley, Emma Kohlmann, Barbara Kruger, Sol LeWitt, Emiliano Maggi, Lucy McKenzie, Birgit Megerle, Bruno Munari, Magdalo Mussio, Luigi Ontani, Giulio Paolini, Raymond Pettibon, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Cloti Ricciardi, Cinzia Ruggeri, Mario Schifano, Edith Schloss, Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, Cindy Sherman, Michael Snow, Wolfgang Tillmans, Cy Twombly, Nico Vascellari, Luigi Veronesi, Andro Wekua, Christopher Wool

IMAGES FOR SOUNDS: Artist Covers for Music Records is the first exhibition at Villa Lontana to unite, in a single space, more than 140 records released since the 1950s together with artists’ covers conceived for the express purpose of giving images to sounds. The exhibition reflects on the collaboration between visual artists and musicians, playing on the duality between visual and sound material and focusing not on records produced by artists but on artists’ covers for a variety of musical projects, which range from the odd casual collaboration to broad solutions for entire discographic series. The main part of the exhibition draws from the extensive record collection of the musicologist, art historian and collector Giuseppe Garrera, featuring more than 100 records and artists’ covers. This section of the exhibition traces a history of artists’ covers within Italian music publishing from the 50s to the 90s, attempting to provide an initial survey in the absence of major discographic collections or bibliographic studies on the subject.

Two themed sections will be presented throughout the course of the exhibition. The first is an homage to the late Sylvano Bussotti, featuring a selection of his most radical and brilliant covers for his own sheet music. These too come from the collection of Giuseppe Garrera and many of them are exhibited in public for the first time. The other section is dedicated to international and often more contemporary collaborations. This latter section will be in continuous evolution for the duration of the exhibition, with a weekly rotation of different records borrowed from the collections and archives of the artists themselves or from the records’ respective labels. The musical contents of the exhibited records will provide the soundtrack to the exhibition—it too in continuous evolution and chosen by the viewers, who will be able, by request, to listen to the music and so explore in space the visual translation of sounds into images, moving from the great masterpieces of classical music, to folk songs, to the experimental sounds of electronic music and techno tracks.

For more information download the press release HERE.

Opening hours:
Wednesday/Saturday, 11am—6pm or by appointment.

Until the end of the state of emergency, access in the space is allowed only to visitors in possession of the green COVID-19 certification obtained after completing the vaccination or recovery cycle.