Ma l’Amore No by Lucio Amelio, 1990, designed by Cy Twombly © 2017 Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
What we gain with the ascent of streaming music — it’s easy, endless and convenient — we lose in… incredible and inspiring album art. When was the last time we had a cover as iconic as Patti Smith’s Horses or The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers? For those of you nodding yes at home — and thinking back to your own beloved covers — we’d like to direct you to Art & Vinyl, based on a similarly named exhibit at San Francisco’s Fraenkel Gallery earlier this year. There are over 200 LPs pictured in the book, published by Fraenkel Gallery/Editions Antoine de Beaupré, all the result of big-name artists crossing over to the music world. Sol LeWitt did a cover for Philip Glass; Ed Ruscha, for Mason Williams; Robert Rauschenberg, for Talking Heads; Josef Albers, for Terry Snyder and The All Stars, and so on. One of our favorites is the Cy Twombly example above for Lucio Amelio’s Ma l’Amore No — dedicated intriguingly enough to fellow 20th Century art great Joseph Beuys. Meanwhile, Beuys has two covers in this collection, both for his own spoken-word/performance-art recordings.

The cover of Art & Vinyl (D.A.P.), featuring Glenn Gould’s Bach: The Goldberg Variations, 1984, painted by Gerhard Richter © Gerhard Richter 2017, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

A spread featuring the cover of Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, 1970, designed by Mati Klarwein © Adagp, Paris, 2018, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

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