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Well Played: The Art of Record Collecting



Paul Rosenblatt’s interactive installation is composed of about 15,000 well played records, turntables, amps, speakers, computers, and related artifacts. Visitors to the exhibition, whether in person or online, are invited to dig into Paul’s crates, physically or virtually, and spin some tunes. Records rotate. The records in this installation re-present recordings of live and electronic performances that were manufactured, marketed, sold, collected, and (well) played before Paul collected them again.

An excerpt from the article, “Artist turns vinyl-record collection into interactive installation” by Danielle Fox, Pittsburgh City Paper

“Rosenblatt, the principal of Springboard Design, opened Well Played, Paul’s Vinyl Records at 707 Penn Gallery in September, as part of the Pittsburgh Biennial. The storefront space is filled with roughly 15,000 used records, which he urges you to rake through and pass to the in-house DJ. A live stream on his website displays audio and video of these transactions, and visitors can ask the DJ to play one of the 925 records listed online. ‘The thing that interests me — and this is where the title of the show comes from — is that all of these records were well played and well loved, and at some point, they were discarded,’ Rosenblatt says. ‘For me, the beauty of this show is it picks up where that left off, in a way.’

Rosenblatt, 55, grew up in a family of music-lovers, inheriting his obsession as a ‘blood defect.’ The architect also ran a popular, now-defunct music blog, ‘Vinyl Record Architect.’ A couple years back, Rosenblatt asked the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Murray Horne about turning his personal 2,000-album collection into an art installation. Rather than have Rosenblatt use his own LPs, Horne gave him a budget and told him to “blow the whole thing on records.”

Some 15,000 cheap but eclectic albums from Jerry’s Records later, the collection isn’t his, but still feels personal. Rosenblatt’s art hangs above the racks, and he comments on the albums through blurbs on selected pieces. ‘It is sort of like the experience of going into a record store with someone else you know and have them whisper in your ear and tell you about something you came across,’ Rosenblatt says.”

For the complete article, click here.

Photography by Tom Little.

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