Pigmented cotton ‘record’ inside abaca sleeve, 7 3/16 x 7 1/16 inches. Edition of 25.

Andy Mister creates highly detailed drawings in carbon pencil based on found, digital images from the aesthetics and artifacts surrounding music and music culture. The artist typically works on commercially produced paper as a support, but explores paper as a sculptural medium in his 2014 Paper Variables edition program. Working in collaboration with Dieu Donné Artistic Director Paul Wong, Silence (Single) is a handmade paper 7” record for the fictional band Silence of their single “Where Are We Going?” and B-side “What Are We Doing?”. The record is made of pigmented cotton paper and is contained in a translucent abaca sleeve. Each label has a unique serial number, indicating the piece’s edition number.

The record’s appearance - a yellow label with bold black typeface - are based on a series of 1976 recordings of sound effects by the influential west coast artist Jack Goldstein. The band name Silence comes from the title of a collection of essays by John Cage, and the song titles are from a lecture that was performed by the artist at Pratt Institute in 1961. Cage was told that the questions “Where are we going and what are we doing?” were the burning question among the students at the time, and questions that Mister believes are still relevant. Both Cage and Goldstein
both embraced irreverence in their work, a quality also celebrated by Mister as evident in this work which an unplayable format by a made up band, referring to out dated technology. Mister’s work concerns an era when records were a visual, object-based compliment to music, which has been phased out in the digital age. Silence (Single) is a tribute to this era and one’s own physical, emotional, and nostalgic attachment to music.