When I saw the talking heads album cover as one of the images I could research I instantly thought that would be the one I wanted to do. I love the talking heads, but I had no idea the meaning behind any of their album covers.

After doing some research I found out that the album cover listed in the presentation wasn’t actually designed by Robert Rauschenberg as it says. He designed the original version of the album cover, but the popular one (and the one that’s listed on the presentation for class) was actually designed by the band's lead singer David Byrne. Source: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-the-story-behind-robert-rauschenberg-s-iconic-talking-heads-album-cover

What was even more interesting than the cover Byrne designed was indeed the Robert Rauschenberg cover – which was actually a see-through vinyl which was apparently extremely hard to manufacture, and even might’ve contributed to the albums delay. The original Rauschenberg cover was only made 50,000 copies of, and Andy Warhol himself purchased one. The artwork that ended up on the vinyl was one of Rauschenberg’s earlier works – which mimicked the CMYK printing process, by having spinning transparent disks, each with graphics in both Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow layered together. When the viewer pressed a button on the artwork, small motors in the base would spin the disks, which revealed an image – which you weren’t able to see without them all being layered together.

The reason Rauschenberg ended up doing the cover was because Byrne saw some of his work at an art gallery and instantly wondered what he could do for the band. The reason there’s a yellow version of the album cover was because the see-through cover Rauschenberg designed was so hard to manufacture that Byrne decided to make an easier to manufacture cover.

I find it hard to place Rauschenberg between modernism and postmodernism. Doing some research it seems like he’s a self proclaimed postmodernist, however I almost object that, if I may. He’s known for being an innovator in terms of art styles and techniques, which to me sounds quite modernist – during the industrial revolution there was a lot of exploration in technique and trying different ideas and methods of art. His art (revolver II) in particular reminds me very much of a picasso artwork – almost collaged, morphed images stitched together. Equally though, I can definitely see the resemblance of pop art – bright colours and screen printed techniques.

Overall, super interesting stuff, and I never knew about the whole secret album cover that Rauschenberg created.