Source: Department of Justice / buzzfeed
An ultra-rare album by the Wu-Tang Clan is now on display for fans—but only in a museum in Australia.
Source: Department of Justice / buzzfeed
According to reports, the rare Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time In Shaolin will be made available to the public for the first time since its creation nine years ago. The catch? It will be on display in a museum in Tasmania, Australia. The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) has announced that it will be on display as part of its “Namedropping” exhibition, highlighting some of the world’s most captivating musicians and artists. The exhibition will run from June 15 to June 24, with the Wu-Tang Clan exhibit available twice daily from Friday to Monday.
“Every once in a while, an object on this planet possesses mystical properties that transcend its material circumstances,” Jarrod Rawlins, Director of Curatorial Affairs at MONA, said in a press statement. “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is more than just an album, so when I was thinking about status, and what a transcendent namedrop could be, I knew I had to get it into this exhibition.” Visitors will also get to listen to the album in specially curated 30-minute mixes and at private listening parties at the institution’s Frying Pan Studios. There will be a limited amount of free tickets available for visitors.
Once Upon a Time In Shaolin, produced in secrecy, was announced as a one-of-a-kind mission to “put out a piece of art like nobody else has done in the history of [modern] music,” as stated by The RZA in an interview with Forbes in 2014. The album would go up for auction in 2015, where it would be purchased by the controversial Martin Shkreli aka “Pharma Bro” for $2 million, making Once Upon a Time In Shaolin among the most expensive albums ever sold. Shkreli would have the album seized by the Department of Justice as he was convicted of securities fraud. The DOJ would then sell it to the digital art collective Pleasr in 2021. “With this single work of art, the Wu-Tang Clan’s intention was to redefine the meaning of music ownership and value in a world of digital streaming and commodification of music. Pleasr is honored to partner with Mona to support RZA’s vision for Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” the group said in a statement.
Rare Wu-Tang Clan Album To Go On Display In Australia was originally published on hiphopwired.com