Once upon a time in Shaolin, the Wu-Tang Clan album whose sole copy was purchased by Martin Shkreli in 2015 and later resold at auction, will receive its first public plays at listening events next month. The series takes place at the Australian Museum of Old and New Art as part of the Namedropping exhibition. In addition to listening events for a 30-minute snippet of the album, the physical disc, housed in a silver box, will be on display.
The museum's director of curatorial affairs, Jarrod Rawlins, said in a press release: “Every once in a while, an object on this planet has mystical properties that transcend its material circumstances. Once upon a time in Shaolin it's more than just an album, so when I was thinking about the status, and how transcendent it could be, I knew I had to bring it to this exhibition.”
A contract stipulates that the album – now owned by digital art collective Pleasr – cannot be exploited commercially until 2109, but can be played at private listening events such as MONA's. The exhibition runs from June 15-24.
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