Rutherford Chang, 1979–2025
By Annabel Preston
Portrait of RUTHERFORD CHANG with his White Album collection at the exhibition "We Buy White Albums" at Recess Gallery, New York, 2013. Photo by Chester Higgins Jr. Courtesy the New York Times.
On January 24, conceptual artist and collector Rutherford Chang, who was known for his eccentric collection of mass-produced cultural artifacts, passed away at his home in Manhattan. He was 45 years old.
Born in Houston to Taiwanese parents, Chang grew up in California and later moved to New York, dividing his time between there and Shanghai. At 15 years old, he made his first purchase of the Beatles’ White Album on vinyl at a garage sale for USD 1. What ensued was a playful obsession—at the time of his passing, Chang had amassed a collection of 3,417 original pressings of the White Album. He was drawn to older copies for their unique character and the imagined histories they held through marks from previous owners—mold, coffee stains, poems, or graffiti—and the way each sounded slightly different due to dust or scratches on the discs. He religiously listened to the album daily, and shared his evergrowing collection via Instagram @webuywhitealbums.
In one of his final works, CENTS (2024), Chang collected 10,000 copper pennies dated before 1982. After recording images of each penny on a blockchain, he melted them into a solid 68-pound cube, a commentary on the layers of value ascribed to traditional currency, and an eternal preservation of a coin which will ultimately be terminated. He retained the original physical work, while a three-dimensional model was auctioned by Christie’s last year as a digital asset for USD 50,400.
Chang’s collection and works have been exhibited globally at venues including White Space in Beijing, Brown Gallery in London, and Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
Chang is survived by his parents, sisters Danielle and Madeline, and partner Tsubasa Narita.
Annabel Preston is the assistant editor at ArtAsiaPacific.
