Robert Rauschenberg created one of the most innovative album covers in music history when David Byrne approached him to design the artwork for Talking Heads‘ 1983 album Speaking in Tongues. Instead of a flat cover, Rauschenberg crafted a translucent, three-dimensional spinning collage that won him a Grammy for Best Album Cover in 1984. The design drew from Rauschenberg’s 1967 “Revolver” series—kinetic sculptures featuring silkscreened images on rotating Perspex discs. These works created constantly shifting, kaleidoscopic visuals as overlapping images from popular media blended together in cinematic layers, exploring themes of perception and memory.
Our homage recreates parts of this experience. The original three printed circular sheets are layered between clear acrylic discs, and the entire piece rotates to create a composition similar to Rauschenberg’s vision. This construction also preserves the fragile disks. The discs measure 13 inches (33 cm) in diameter, mounted on a 12 x 12 x 1.2 inch (30 x 30 x 3 cm) box with an overall depth of 3.5 inches (8.5 cm).
