Buying White Albums

In search of smartdumb: Rutherford Chang (RIP)

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I was saddened to see that the artist Rutherford Chang passed away a few weeks ago. I had met Rutherford almost 20 years ago through my high school friends Matt and Phil Tinari, and the last time we saw each other was on the roof of Petit Ermitage when Matt was in town drumming with Noura Mint Seymali back in 2017.

Rutherford was my favorite kind of artist: high-minded but clear in execution, mischievous but never not compassionate. Whenever he said what he was up to, my first reaction was always laughter, and my second was always disbelief: “How has nobody thought to do this before?” Conceptual artist is hardly ever said without scare quotes. But here was one whose goal was not just unpretentious but somehow a bit quaint: Rutherford wanted us to remember what wonder feels like. What if we… I don’t think I would have arrived at a working theory of smartdumb without meeting him.

Rutherford’s most well-known project was “We Buy White Albums.” The cover of the White Album is of course, just white, but that means that over time each copy accumulates unique wear and tear. They were at one point identical, but over time each copy became an original. Rutherford became obsessed with the subtle variations of each cover, and from there the subtle variations of the audio pressings themselves. He had purchased thousands of first editions by 2013 bt the time he opened the “We Buy White Albums” installation at Recess in New York. The exhibit was designed to look and feel like a record shop, with big bins and turntables – except all the albums were White Albums. Every six months or so, I would receive an e-mail from Rutherford about his “We Buy White Albums” exhibit traveling the world: Sacramento, Louisville, Rotterdam, Berlin. There was also an Instagram account, where Rutherford posted a new White Album cover every few days.

To me, the masterstroke was Rutherford’s audio experiment. What would it sound like if you played 100 different copies of the White Album at once? He digitally recorded side one of 100 different copies of White Album, then laid the audio on top of one another with the same starting point. Over the course of the side, each copy’s audio begins to drift from another – first light phasing, then faint echoes, then perceivable ones, then a granular mess of sound that’s reminiscent of processed guitar music like Fennesz or Tim Hecker. The familiar, made unfamiliar – except it’s also a beautiful recording. Imperfections, perfectly expressed. Hats off to fellow Thayerite Eliah Seton for not taking this one down:

You can learn more about Rutherford’s work on his website.

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The smartdumb playlists have been updated, with tunes from White Zombie, Ol Dirty Bastard, and the White Album.