Christian Marclay
29 Mar - 03 Jun 2012
CHRISTIAN MARCLAY
The Clock
Curator: Rachel Kent
29 March – 3 June, 2012
The Clock is a 24-hour video by artist Christian Marclay. The work will be shown in its entirety on the MCA’s opening day, then played continuously during regular museum opening hours. Every subsequent Thursday the MCA will present a special 24-hour screening of The Clock in the MCA’s level 1 gallery in the new wing.
The Clock comprises several thousand short extracts from cinema history, each suggesting a particular time of day or referencing a specific moment, often through the appearance of a watch or clock-face. They are edited together to form a continuous visual sequence synchronised with the real time of visitors in the gallery who watch the film; and they suggest countless interlocking narratives despite the constant changes in genres, eras, locations and plotlines.
The Clock highlights the centrality of time within conventional cinematic narratives – the way it binds stories together and leads us through their events. Yet by the same token, cinema traditionally immerses viewers within an illusory sense of time, suspending momentarily the real time of the world outside. The Clock creates an uncanny correspondence between cinematic and real time, drawing viewers into a parallel awareness of what they watch on screen and experience beyond it.
Christian Marclay was born in California in 1955 and grew up in Switzerland. He now lives between London and New York. He is an internationally acclaimed artist who has employed the concept of collage since the 1970s across diverse media including film and video, photography, installation, sound and music.
The Clock
Curator: Rachel Kent
29 March – 3 June, 2012
The Clock is a 24-hour video by artist Christian Marclay. The work will be shown in its entirety on the MCA’s opening day, then played continuously during regular museum opening hours. Every subsequent Thursday the MCA will present a special 24-hour screening of The Clock in the MCA’s level 1 gallery in the new wing.
The Clock comprises several thousand short extracts from cinema history, each suggesting a particular time of day or referencing a specific moment, often through the appearance of a watch or clock-face. They are edited together to form a continuous visual sequence synchronised with the real time of visitors in the gallery who watch the film; and they suggest countless interlocking narratives despite the constant changes in genres, eras, locations and plotlines.
The Clock highlights the centrality of time within conventional cinematic narratives – the way it binds stories together and leads us through their events. Yet by the same token, cinema traditionally immerses viewers within an illusory sense of time, suspending momentarily the real time of the world outside. The Clock creates an uncanny correspondence between cinematic and real time, drawing viewers into a parallel awareness of what they watch on screen and experience beyond it.
Christian Marclay was born in California in 1955 and grew up in Switzerland. He now lives between London and New York. He is an internationally acclaimed artist who has employed the concept of collage since the 1970s across diverse media including film and video, photography, installation, sound and music.