Can You Hear Me? Music Labels by Visual Artists is the first survey on the obscure and fascinating phenomenon of record labels founded and run by visual artists. It reflects on the way these extra-artistic activities contribute to redefining the role of the contemporary artist as a catalyst for intellectual energies and producer of cultural processes at large. Moreover, it tries to understand if and how these activities challenged the art world’s static and modern perception of art and artworks.

Spanning 1980 to 2015, the project zooms in on 25 record labels from Europe, the United States, and Mexico, touching upon their position in a wider tradition of independent music, art-rock and artists’ mock enterprises; their performative features; their collective and participative nature; and the D.I.Y. ethos embodied in the production of records and ephemera. 

Editor: Francesco Spampinato
Design: Arthur Roeloffzen
Year: 2015
Pages: 160
Dimensions:
Cover: Softcover
ISBN: 978-94-91677-36-6
Language: English