Featuring some 2,500 album sleeves, the exhibit documents the history and ephemera of album design with a sprawling collection from over 50 different contributors, many of whom are musicians or DJs themselves, cataloging the obvious (death metal, children's records) and the obscure (vintage foreign-language instruction and Christian ventriloquist LPs). There are surf LPs and Hawaiian music LPs, Muzak LPs and new wave synth LPs, and LPs with titles like Deep Throat and Music to Break Your Lease By. They're all chosen for their graphic design rather than their musical value.

  "The idea was to visualize the music and to whet the appetite of the listener," says show contributor Alex Steinweiss, the 84-year-old designer who's credited with the invention of album art during his tenure at Columbia Records in the 1930s and '40s. "It seems to have worked."

  In addition to featured collectors -- like Steinweiss, Jim Thirlwell (aka Foetus), Man's Ruin Records label head Frank Kozik, Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore, and avant-jazz experimentalist John Zorn -- artist Christian Marclay and DJ Spooky will create individual installations. A summer DJ series is planned to bring the wall-mounted wax to life during gallery evenings fit for tourists and purists alike.

  "The thing about album covers is that you've got all this great art being done in relative anonymity," says Carlo McCormick, the show's chief curator and a PAPER senior editor. "All these records would have been relegated to dust bins if not for the collectors. The show's about them and their passion."