Christian Marclay's Clocks, Tick Tocking, Open at MoMA

DISPATCH - DEC 22, 2012 (11:15 a.m.)

NEW YORK CITY, NY-

When the clock struck midnight on Dec 20, there were dancers grooving in silence to music only they could hear (piped through headphones and supplied by two deejays) while keeping an eye on the clock—or rather, "The Clock" by Christian Marclay. The "silent disco" provided an unusual sneak peek at the film-based artwork at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) that opened at 12:01 a.m. on Dec 21, 2012.

Marclay's "The Clock" presents the minute-by-minute passage of 24-hours through a montage of film clips that includes dramatic lines, dialogue, snippets of soundtracks and soundscapes. "The Clock" has a running time of 24 hours that is synchronized with real time. The piece premiered in 2010 and screened the same year at White Cube in London. "The Clock" won Marclay the Golden Lion award for the best artist at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011. It was acquired earlier this year by the Los Angeles County Art Museum for its permanent collection.

Christian Marclay. Detail of The Clock. 2010. Single-channel video with sound, 24 hours. © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

"The Clock" remains on view at MoMA through Jan 21, 2013 in the museum's Contemporary Gallery, located on the Second Floor.

MoMA is presenting several opportunities to view the art piece in its entirely. On New Year's Eve, "The Clock" will screen continually from 10:30 a.m. on Dec 31, 2012 until Jan 1, 2013 at 5:30 p.m. This is the first chance to view all 24-hours of "The Clock" at MoMA. Providing sustenance for the all nighter will be the availability of wines, cheeses, salami and desserts from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. from the Museum's Cafe 2 restaurant plus an all-night expresso bar.

"The Clock" can also be viewed in its entirety during screenings held on three consecutive weekends. Each screening begins on Friday at 10:30 a.m. and runs through Sunday at 5:30 p.m. Continual screenings will be held on Jan 4-6, 11-13 and 18-20, 2013.

Christian Marclay. Detail of The Clock. 2010. Single-channel video with sound, 24 hours. © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

For those not wishing for a marathon viewing, "The Clock" will be presented during the museum's regular hours. Viewing is free with museum entrance. Entrance to "The Clock" is on a walk-in basis. Tickets will not be issued and there is no time limitations for viewers. The room has a capacity of 170 (130 seated and 40 standing). The museum expects the installation will draw high demand and significant wait times should be expected, according to MoMA.

Christian Marclay. Detail of The Clock. 2010. Single-channel video with sound, 24 hours. © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

"The Clock" has made a significant impact as a crowd-pleaser. Even though clips move at a wicked pace, a commanding implication of narrative ties the dramatic scenes together. The pulsating recurrence in the film of a clock marking the time keeps the tension taut. The piece presents a fictitious time ticking, synched to the real one and infused with a conceptual narrative, resulting in an experience that pushes the experience of watching movies past the cinematic art form into fine art.

Christian Marclay. Detail of The Clock. 2010. Single-channel video with sound, 24 hours. © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, and White Cube, London. Photo: Todd-White Photography.

The Paula Cooper Gallery described "The Clock" this way:

"With virtuosic skill, the artist has excerpted each of these moments from their original contexts and edited them together to form a 24-hour montage, which unfolds in real time. While constructed from a dizzying variety of periods, contexts and film genres whose storylines seem to have shattered in a multitude of narrative shards, The Clock uncannily proceeds at a unified pace as if re-ordered by the latent narrative of time itself. Because it is synchronized with the local time of the exhibition space, the work conflates cinematic and actual time, revealing each passing minute as a repository of alternately suspenseful, tragic or romantic narrative possibilities."

"The Clock" was exhibited at the Paula Cooper Gallery in January and February 2011.

Detail of "The Clock" by Christian Marclay, 2010. Single channel video with sound, 24 hours. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, NY and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Marclay is known as a pioneer in the use of gramophone records and turntables as musical instruments to create sound collages, according to MoMA. Through his exploration of the ways fine art and audio culture can mix, Marclay's work transforms sound and music into performance art, collage, sculpture, installation, photography and video.

Christian Marclay. Installation view of The Clock. 2010. Single-channel video with sound, 24 hours. White Cube’s Mason Yard, London, October 15-November 13, 2010. © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, and White Cube, London. Photo: Todd-White Photography.

BASIC FACTS: "The Clock" by Christian Marclay opened on Dec 21, 2012 and remains on view through Jan 21, 2013 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The piece is installed in the museum's Contemporary Galleries on the Second Floor.

The Museum of Modern Art is located at 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019-5497. For details, visit www.moma.org.

MoMA is tweeting updates and live reports on visiting "The Clock" via Twitter @TheClockatMoMA. The public can tweet about The Clock using the hashtag #TheClockatMoMA.

RELATED STORIES: Gothamist: "Christian Marclay's The Clock will be at MoMA Starting This Month" by Rebecca Fishbein. Published Dec 5, 2012. (Includes a film excerpt).

ArtDaily.org: "Christian Marclay's The Clock Winner of Golden Lion Prize at 2011 Venice Biennial."

________________________________________

Don't miss a story!

We are on Social Networks