Christian Marclay | |
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 Marclay in 2012 | |
| Born | Christian Marclay (1955-01-11)11 January 1955 (age 70) San Rafael, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | Swiss; American |
| Known for | Visual artist, composer |
| Notable work | The Clock |
Christian Marclay (born January 11, 1955) is avisual artist and composer. He holds both American and Swiss nationality.
Marclay's work explores connections betweensound art,noise music,photography,video art, film anddigital animations. A pioneer of usinggramophone records andturntables asmusical instruments to createsound collages, Marclay is, in the words of critic Thom Jurek, perhaps the "unwitting inventor ofturntablism."[1] His own use of turntables and records, beginning in the late 1970s, was developed independently of but roughly parallel tohip hop's use of the instrument.[2]
Christian Marclay was born on January 11, 1955, inSan Rafael,Marin County, California, to a Swiss father and an American mother and raised inGeneva, Switzerland.[3][4] He studied at the Ecole Supérieure d'Art Visuel in Geneva (1975–1977), theMassachusetts College of Art and Design inBoston (1977–1980, Bachelor of Fine Arts) in the Studio for Interrelated Media Program, and theCooper Union in New York (1978).[2][4] As a student he was notably interested inJoseph Beuys and theFluxus movement of the 1960s and 1970s.[5] Long based inManhattan, Marclay has in recent years divided his time between New York and London.[6]
Citing the influence ofJohn Cage,Yoko Ono andVito Acconci, Marclay has long explored the rituals around making and collecting music.[7] Drawn to the energy ofpunk rock, he began creating songs, singing to music on pre-recorded backing tapes. In 1979, he formed a punk rock band called Bachelors Even with his friend, guitarist Kurt Henry.[8][9] Unable to recruit a drummer for the band, Marclay used the regular rhythms of a skipping LP record as a percussion instrument.[10][11] These duos with Henry might be the first time a musician used records and turntables as interactive, improvising musical instruments.[12]Marclay sometimes manipulates or damages records to produce continuous loops and skips,[13] and has said he generally prefers inexpensive used records purchased at thrift shops, as opposed to other turntablists who often seek out specific recordings. In 1998, he claimed never to have paid more than US$1 for a record.[10] Marclay has occasionally cut and re-joined different LP records; when played on a turntable, these re-assembled records will combine snippets of different music in quick succession along with clicks or pops from the seams[14] – typical ofnoise music – and when the original LPs were made of differently-colored vinyl, the reassembled LPs can themselves be considered asworks of art.
Some of Marclay's musical pieces are carefully recorded and editedplunderphonics-style; he is also active infree improvisation. He was filmed performing a duo withErikm for the documentaryScratch. His scene didn't make the final cut, but is included among the DVD extras.
Marclay releasedRecord Without a Cover on Recycled Records in 1985, "...designed to be sold without a jacket, not even a sleeve!" Accumulating dust and fingerprints would enhance the sound. A review inSpin at the time cited Marclay's "coolest theatrical gesture" in his live performances of phonoguitar: the artist strapped a record player onto himself and played, for example, aJimi Hendrix album.[15] In his artworkFive Cubes (1989), he melted vinyl records into cubes.[16][17]The Sound of Silence (1988) is a black-and-white photograph of theSimon & Garfunkelsingle of the same title.[18]
Following this turn, Marclay has in more recent years produced visual art, although usually of representations of sound, or the various technologies of representing sound. HisGraffiti Composition (2002) posted musical notes on walls around Berlin, compiled photographs of them as they faded, and is performed in concert. During his residency at Eyebeam, Marclay createdScreen Play (2005), a twenty minute video of black and white images overlaid with colorful computer graphics. For Performa 05, the first edition of thePerforma Biennial, two ensembles and one soloist interpretedScreen Play.
Shuffle (2007) andEphemera (2009) are also musical scores. InSound Holes (2007), he photographed the many patterns of speaker holes on intercoms. From 2007-2009 he worked withcyanotype atGraphicstudio to capture the motion of cassette tapes unspooling. And an interest in onomatopoeia dating back to 1989 has culminated in his monumentalManga Scroll (2010), a 60-foot scroll of cartoon interjections that doubles as a musical score.[19]
In 2010, he producedThe Clock, a 24-hour compilation of time-related scenes from movies that debuted at London'sWhite Cube gallery in 2010.[20] In 2016, he producedMade to Be Destroyed, a compilation of film clips showing the destruction of art works or buildings.[21] Marclay made several forays into video art that informedThe Clock. His 1995 filmTelephones forms a narrative out of clips fromHollywood films where characters use a telephone.[22] His 1998 filmUp and Out combines video fromMichelangelo Antonioni'sBlowup with audio fromBrian De Palma'sBlow Out. It was an early experiment in the effect of synchronization, where viewers naturally attempted to find intersections between the two works, and it developed the editing style that Marclay employs forThe Clock.[22][23]
Thom Jurek writes: "While many intellectuals have made wild pronouncements about Marclay and his art – and it is art, make no mistake – writing all sorts of blather about how he strips the adult century bare by his cutting up of vinyl records and pasting them together with parts from other vinyl records, they never seem to mention that these sound collages of his are charming, very human, and quite often intentionally hilarious."[24]
In addition to his solo performances and recordings, Marclay has also collaborated with many musicians, includingJohn Zorn,William Hooker,Elliott Sharp,Otomo Yoshihide,Butch Morris,Shelley Hirsch, Flo Kaufmann andCrevice; he has also performed with the groupSonic Youth, and in other projects with Sonic Youth's members.
Marclay began dating curator Lydia Yee in 1991, and the couple married in 2011.[26]
At the 2011Venice Biennale, representing the United States, Marclay was recognized as the best artist in the official exhibition, winning the Golden Lion forThe Clock.Newsweek responded by naming Marclay one of the ten most important artists of today.[27] Accepting the Golden Lion, Marclay invokedAndy Warhol, thanking the jury "for givingThe Clock its fifteen minutes".[28] In 2013, Dale Eisinger ofComplex rankedBerlin Mix the 17th best work of performance art in history.[29]
In 2015, theWhite Cube presented a major solo exhibition including a range of new work and a lively programme of weekly performances played by theLondon Sinfonietta and guests, includingThurston Moore andMica Levi.
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