“Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined” is on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) through February 13. Highlighting the interactions between music and visual arts, and celebrating the record label’s 30th anniversary, it pairs musicians alongside visual artists from the last three decades, coming together in a creative exchange.
Installation photograph, “Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, January 30–February 13, 2022, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA.
Conceived by label partner Justin Lubliner along with its co-founder Jimmy Iovine, chairman John Janick, vice chairman Steve Berman, and music executive Josh Abraham, Interscope Records seized the occasion of its milestone to embrace a moment of retrospection and collaboration. Inviting 46 visual artists into its archives, they were asked to select songs from the label’s oeuvre that resonated for them. Responding in a total of 50 artworks, the artists created a visual montage of the exchanges, like a work by Kehinde Wiley responding to Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, Cecily Brown’s abstracted composition looking at dont smile at me by Billie Eilish, and a work by Rashid Johnson in response to Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid MAAD City.
“‘Artists Inspired by Music’ celebrates a dialogue between two different art forms across three decades of production,” said Stacie Steinberger, LACMA’s associate curator of Decorative Arts and Design. “The show provides a fresh perspective on influential albums for the present moment.”
Installation photograph, “Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, January 30–February 13, 2022, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA.
Other featured creatives include visual artists like Takashi Murakami, Ed Ruscha, Lauren Halsey, Loie Hollowell, Richard Prince, Chloe Wise, and Nina Chanel Abney, looking at musicians across genres, including those like Lady Gaga, Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lana Del Rey, and Mary J. Blige.
Through the run of the presentation, LACMA will continue to explore the intersection of the two mediums through a series of public programming. At its close, NFT platform NTWRK will be releasing a collection of limited-edition reissued vinyls, featuring the corresponding works as cover art.
Cecily Brown, “If teardrops could be bottled,” 2021, oil on linen, 29 × 31 inches; © Cecily Brown, photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist.
