
Christian Marclay
2021Telephones
Christian Marclay
Cleverly conceived and artfully edited, Christian Marclay's 7 1/2-minute video, Telephones, comprises a succession of brief film clips that creates a humorous narrative of its own in which the characters, in progression, dial, hear the phone ring, pick it up, converse, react, say goodbye and hang up. In doing so, they express a multitude of emotions--surprise, desire, anger, disbelief, excitement, boredom--ultimately leaving the impression that they are all part of one big conversation.
Telephones
Made to Be Destroyed
Christian Marclay
With MADE TO BE DESTROYED, Christian Marclay edits together a multitude of film clips in which artworks are destroyed. The minutia of the preliminary research and ensuing editing highlights a series of narrative and cultural patterns whereby art is the victim of violence. Whether sprayed (Batman, 1989), burnt (Equilibrium, 2002) or smashed (Le sang d’un poète, 1932 The Naked Gun, 1988), artworks are destroyed in moments that express rage against the self and others, the pain of loss, rebellion against a state or political power, or simply the perfect foil for a slapstick mishap.
Made to Be Destroyed
Money
Henry Hills
Tom Cora, Christian Marclay
Money (1985) is an historical document of the early days of "language poetry" and the downtown improvised music scene. A manic collage film from the mid-80s when it still seemed that Reaganism of the soul could be defeated. Filmed primarily on the streets of Manhattan for the ambient sounds and movements and occasional pedestrian interaction to create a rich tapestry of swirling colors and juxtaposed architectural spaces in deep focus and present the intense urban overflowing energy that is experience living here. Money is thematically centered around a discussion of economic problems facing avant-garde artists. Discussion, however, is fragmented into words and phrases and reassembled into writing. Musical and movement phrases are woven through this conversation to create an almost operatic composition. Give me money!
Money
Lids and Straws
Christian Marclay
Lids and Straws animates 60 photographs of discarded plastic straws to mimic the passing hand of a clock, one second for each image. Christian Marclay took the photographs on his daily walks around London with the idea to control how single-use plastics provide mere seconds of enjoyment yet take an eternity to biodegrade.
Lids and Straws
Guitar Drag
Christian Marclay
For this video shot in Texas, Christian Marclay connected an electric guitar to an amplifier and dragged it behind a pick-up truck. The resulting cacophonic sound evokes noise music and the destruction of instruments at rock concerts and in Fluxus performances. The work refers more precisely to a racist murder committed in 1998 not far from the film location - James Byrd Jr. an African American, was dragged by a truck for several kilometers.
Guitar Drag
48 War Movies
Christian Marclay
48 War Movies (2019) is a single-channel video that collapses conflicts from the Civil War to Iraq into a horrifying aggregate spectacle of war. Dramatizations are collaged into almost indistinguishable narratives and presented through concentric rectangles, like a flickering conveyor belt of popular cultural content. The forty-eight war films play simultaneously and continuously, and the accompanying soundtrack generates an indecipherable cacophony of wartime sounds.
48 War Movies