“Wall Drawing 1180: Within a circle draw 10,000 straight black lines and 10,000 black not straight lines. LeWitt liked to be a recipe writer, not a chef. Instead, he wrote out instructions for artwork, and then left it to “constructors”-often art students, museum curators, or others, to do the actual work of fabrication. Sol LeWitt is an unusual artist in that he rarely painted, drew, or sculpted the art you see by him. One entire building, from top to bottom, is dedicated to the work of Sol LeWitt. In the old mill town of North Adams, Massachusetts, a cluster of nineteenth-century factory buildings has been converted into the largest museum of contemporary art in the United States: Mass MoCA. You must think more deeply, and enter the Shaolin temple of your mind. He shouldn’t have destroyed that singular vase, you may be thinking. It is forever there, whole, and yet we know it is forever in pieces. It exists, but it is milliseconds from not existing. He took a series of high-speed photographs of the vase drop, which he assembled into a triptych in the middle photograph the vase seems like it’s in a levitating, suspended state. In 1995, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei took an ancient, priceless Han Dynasty vase and dropped it onto a brick floor. What if Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is meant primarily as art, as a precious artifact that only one person, like a king, can hold? And if we consider this question, do we really need to listen to the album to hear what it’s saying? Many have sought ways that the public might listen to Once, but few have taken RZA at his word. As he told Forbes, “We’re about to put out a piece of art like nobody else has done in the history of music…This is like someone having the scepter of an Egyptian king.” RZA, the leader of the Wu-Tang Clan, had tried to forewarn us. But our obsession with possessing the album has prevented us from contemplating the nature of the album-its existence-which is what the Buddhists of Shaolin would, after all, prefer us to do. This has made many people unhappy, and some have hatched schemes to retrieve Once, ideally using the martial arts the Shaolin monks are known for. It may very well gather dust for some time. Presumably, the album continues to sit there, in the shadows, unplayed. Alas, the FBI left Once Upon a Time in Shaolin in Shkreli’s New York apartment. Then, in one of 2015’s greatest moments of schadenfreude, especially for those who care about the widespread availability of quality healthcare and hip hop, Shkreli was arrested by the FBI for fraud. This career arc was more than enough to make him filthy rich by age 30. Once-note the singularity at the beginning of the album’s title-was purchased for $2 million by Martin Shkreli, a young man who was an unsuccessful hedge fund manager and then an unscrupulous drug company executive. By legal agreement, the owner would not be allowed to distribute it commercially until 88 years from now. This album would have only one owner, and thus, perhaps, only one listener. As one of the most innovative rap groups, the Wu-Tang Clan had used concepts for their recordings before, but the latest album would be their highest concept: it would exist as only one copy-as an LP, that physical, authentic format for music-encased in an artisanally crafted box. This is what we know: On November 24, 2015, the Wu-Tang Clan sold its latest album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, through an online auction house.
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