Lamb of Man / Atom and Eve / Americana Materia Medica

This mixed-media collage is part of a project by Dario Robleto in which he imagines his own musical groups and creates their fictive LP album covers. The work presents three imaginary record labels (one label per panel) and their musical output for the year. Each record label offers a different and conflicting point of view: religious fundamentalism, scientific rationalism, and American folk medicine. Robleto has invented the musical groups and all the text and titles. The viewer is left to imagine the sounds and lyrics that might make up each album.

The meticulously hand-cut paper collage echoes both the obsessive nature of record collecting and a kind of creative mourning aesthetic. The artist laments the “death of vinyl” and at the same time gives it new life. In this way, Robleto assumes the role of a DJ by sampling and remixing materials and histories to create a portrait of competing ideologies in the United States through album design.