A few days ago I received a postcard, a photograph on which Hermine stacks record in a dishwashing machine. This seemingly absurd act, which must horrify every music lover, reminded me of my first contact with these wonderful objects. I was about thirteen years old when I - not owning a record-player - started to collect the fragile shellack discs which were still in use in 1955. I got these from a friend whose father ran a cinema, they usually had no protective cover and were scratched and dusty. So I washed the records in warm soapy water and vigeorously rubbed them dry. For a long time this was the only way to express my affection for the music hidden in those mysterious grooves, and I washed them over and over again.

The first "player" was created a little later with the help of a steel construction set which included the necessary parts to build the rotary mechanism. My arm was the tone arm; my hand, holding a knitting needle, was the pickup. I got an indescribable thrill whenever I could elicit a sound or even a sequence of sounds from the black discs. The room had to be absolutely quiet, and only when the ear was very close to the needle, could I decipher that the titles were announced: "You will now hear the Ave Maria by Bach-Gounod from the Gloria-Film with the same title". When a record broke during this procedure, it was glued together again.

What a great pleasure to discover after so many years, that some composers and most of all visual artists treat records in a similarly unusual way: to alienate, destroy, paste together or simply to use them differently.

The exhibition "Broken Music", which has been collected for the daadgalerie by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier, testifies in a hitherto unique density and completeness to this relationship between the medium. The catalogue on hand describes this phenomena meticulously and for the first time comprehensively. Thanks to all lenders, who placed their records and objects at our disposal for the duration of the exhibition. Special acknowledgement to Hanns Sohm, without his information and rare tresures this project in its completeness could not have been realized. Some of the participating artists installed work especially for the exhibition.