Friday, March 25, 2011

Christian Marclay's Clock

Final day of meetings. I totted them up and it came to 28 over the course of this week. If that required acute time management then spare a thought for Christian Marclay whose Clock film at the Hayward Gallery British Art Show 7 beggars belief. I think it's already been shown in Nottingham and at White Cube so this is probably old hat but bear with me... Basically, it’s a 24-hour film made up of thousands of clips showing scenes from films which have clocks or watches as part of the story or are simply shown in the background. So the entire composite movie is like a giant clock, visibly progressesing if not second-by-second (it's not that anal!), then certainly minute-by minute. The editing must have taken forever. You can see a bit of it here. The last time I saw a Marclay piece was in Tokyo when he was Swiss. Though he was actually born in California. Maybe in a few years he'll be Chinese? Anyway, fabulous work.

2 comments:

  1. Not seen the actual piece, but there was a bit on TV a few months back - amazing. If I remember correctly, it took 3 years to put together. But I just thought - is that all! Where do you start trying to get all the material together?

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  2. I know. Amazing. I sat through an hour of it with my mouth open.

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