Print Collector’s Newsletter, May/June 1982

Revolutions Per Minute (The Art Record), a record album of 21 original soundworks by 24 artists, is the latest jolt to the art world from Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. Each gallery artist was asked to record or provide a 3-5 minute segment for Jeff Gordon’s Greene Street Recording Studio. No further directions were given, and the soundworks are an amazing mix.

Jud Fine leads a rhythmic, polyvoice chant that plays on the words “Polynesian” and “polyhedron.” Les Levine bemoans the economics of old age, singing against a Country & Western backup. The gallery staff receives a Russian lesson masterminded by Komar & Melamid and docilely repeats a three-word affront to mothers. Chris Burden shouts an atomic alphabet, Terry Fox plucks a piano string in a desanctified church, and David Smyth typewrites. Joseph Beuys lectures at Cooper Union, and that man of many words manages to cover sensation, social sculpture, Jackson Pollock, and Elvis Presley in a few. Buckminster Fuller reminisces, Eleanor Antin fabricates, and so on. The two-record album is not only fun but pegs each artist’s central concern, whether feminism, ecology, or war. The only gallery artist missing is Arakawa, whose thoughts apparently need a whole album.

Moved to act? Revolutions per Minute comes in two editions. The people’s model is open-ended and contains two records, notes describing each work, an essay by Robert C. Morgan, and pull-out poster for $15. The deluxe limited edition of 500 with 100 artists’ proofs, $600 until June 1 and $1,000 thereafter, includes both the mass model to play, two records to preserve, and signed and numbered offset prints of mockups created for the cover. These mockups were not actually used, the Feldmans finally preferring the cheapest cardboard cover with arty lettering. “The printer thought we were crazy,” says Ron Feldman, but crazy or not, they’ve proved once more their gallery New York’s hotbed for the art of ideas.