jogroglog: February 2013

Sunday, 24 February 2013

A square, red neon sign in the gallery’s window gives the show’s title, and a wall is lined with racks holding copies of “The White Album” — some in near-mint condition, others bearing former owners’ names, psychedelic renderings of “The Beatles,” colourful drawings or, in many cases, patterns created by rotting cardboard (which also contributed an atmospheric hint of mildew).

A long table bearing record bins runs through the gallery, with a turntable and amplifier at each end, and divider cards noting the serial numbers in each section. The lowest-numbered copy Mr. Chang has is 13539. The highest is A3129174 — although that one is the cover only; the discs are missing.

He has bought many of these discs online and from used record shops; others have been donated. He said that the most he has paid for a copy is $20, although he was recently offered copy No. 100. “I was afraid even to ask the price,” he said.

In a way, Mr. Chang’s project is an artwork about an artwork. “The White Album” jacket was designed by the British Pop artist Richard Hamilton, who proposed its almost entirely blank cover as a deliberately minimalist response to the elaborate jacket of the band’s previous album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” It was Hamilton’s idea to use the group’s name as the title (the album was originally to have been called “A Doll’s House,” after the Ibsen play), and to print the song titles on the inner gatefold rather than on the back cover.

The embossing and sequential numbering were his ideas as well, as was the notion of including a photo collage poster and individual portraits of the four Beatles as inserts. He also anticipated Mr. Chang’s ideas about how the album would become weathered: he proposed including a coffee stain, but the idea was dropped when the ring proved difficult to reproduce properly.