Carles Santos, Amalia Ulman

The Proposal is the sixth and final record in Anthem, the series of collaborative 12" singles made for the 9th Berlin Biennale in 2016. It was produced by The Vinyl Factory with DIS and the Biennale, under the creative direction of the Los Angeles artist and musician Ashland Mines, better known as Total Freedom. The series paired artists and musicians who would rarely share a room, and treated the record as one more format of the exhibition. This one brings together two figures from different generations and traditions. Amalia Ulman had become known for Excellences & Perfections (2014), a four-month Instagram performance in which she played a fictional young woman remaking herself in Los Angeles. The piece was then shown at Tate Modern in Performing for the Camera in 2016. Carles Santos, born in Vinaròs in 1940 and trained as a pianist, had spent half a century turning the piano into theatre. His stage works were marked by provocation, sexual themes and a stubborn sense of humour. He died in December 2017.

Santos studied at the Conservatori del Liceu in Barcelona and took part in avant-garde events such as Joan Brossa's irregular concerts. He later composed and directed the music for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and also worked in film, photography, sculpture and writing. For this record Ulman wrote the words and Santos the music, in four parts that follow the life of an art commission from the first pitch to the final bill. Side A holds Part 1: Proposal and Part 2: Funding, side B Part 3: Production (Amphetamines) and Part 4: Invoice. The titles alone give the joke away: the hidden paperwork and chemistry of making art become the libretto, and the glamour of the finished work is never reached. The Vinyl Factory announced it in September 2016 as Ulman's four-part vision falling into the hands of a Spanish piano genius. The pairing is apt: an artist who builds fictions out of self-presentation and the economy around it, set to music by a pianist who spent his career treating the concert itself as material for theatre.

12" on 180g heavyweight vinyl at 45 RPM, design by Meiré & Meiré, edition of 300 copies.