Guitar drag. Courtesy the Barbican.
Graham Russell cuts and pastes himself into a sound and art exhibition at the Barbican.
Michael Jackson turning into a woman, a truck dragging a guitar and 750 telephone receivers scattered on the floor – the Christian Marclay exhibition has it all.
This self-titled multimedia showcase by the Swiss-American contemporary artist is at Barbican Art Gallery until May 2, 2005 and features more than 60 pieces of work brought together from public and private collections around the world.
Barbican Art Gallery is the only UK venue hosting Christian Marclay’s works at the end of a two-year world tour that has included Thun in Switzerland, Avignon in France and Los Angeles, New York and Seattle in the US. The exhibition represents more than 20 years of Marclay’s career and features a blend of striking visuals and curious sound compilations.
Recycled Record. Courtesy the Barbican.
In a statement the artist said, “Sound is central, even though it is mainly a visual experience. Most pieces are silent but are about sound.”
“I’m thrilled to have the show in London, it’s such a musical town. The pieces about The Beatles, you can’t read them in the same way in Los Angeles.”
According to the gallery, the most popular installation has been Video Quartet, a piece created in 2002 that took a whole year to complete.
Seated in a dark viewing room you are treated to nearly 700 film clips edited together to form a single blend of music and visuals projected, at times confusingly, onto four large, adjacent screens. Alternating between harmonious and discordant, it comprises 14 minutes and 32 seconds of mostly powerful Hollywood moments.
Video Quartet. Courtesy the Barbican.
The keen-eyed will see, and hear, everything from the shower scene scream in Psycho to Louis Armstrong performing on the big stage to Sandra Bullock ringing bells in Miss Congeniality.
“Video Quartet is at the heart of the show,” says Marclay. “It is as much about music as it is about visuals. You can’t separate image from the sound – the challenge was to make the pieces fit visually and sonically.”
Indeed, Video Quartet sums up the exhibition as a whole because it features a rich sound and sight experience, coloured by the western society that produced those media.
On the other hand, there are visual pieces in this exhibition that give you clues as to the sound Christian Marclay has in his mind, but leave it up to the exhibition visitor to imagine.
Confused? Well, Recycled Records is a good example here.
Slide Easy In. Courtesy the Barbican.
It features seven vinyl records on a table, each with variously-shaped sections cut out and replaced with other, different-coloured pieces of vinyl. We are given clues as to how each record might sound if we spy the label in the centre (in one case a number by Elvis Presley) but it is ultimately left to the individual to decide.
Then there is the occasional humorous work, such as Footstompin’. Here, Michael Jackson’s white-suited torso on the inside cover of his Thriller album record is carefully stitched onto a Sidney Barnes album cover featuring a scantily clad female.
And then there’s the toilet humour. One work consists of a high wooden stool with a French horn upended and attached to its bottom, resembling a primitive lavatory. Some filthy minds might think its title, Stool, has a double meaning.
It is refreshing to hear that Marclay believes that art doesn’t have to be humourless: “Art is not always, but often, seen in too dry a way.”
Beatles. Courtesy the Barbican.
Two of Christian Marclay’s works in particular add a real sense of frustration to the exhibition.
Drumkit is a distorted…um, drum kit that reaches up nearly four metres. With the cymbals and snare dangling high above the average head, it is a musical instrument that is impossible to play.
Lip Lock achieves the same effect. A tuba and pocket trumpet have been welded together to form an initially interesting and entertaining instrument, until it dawns that the two instruments are joined at the mouthpieces and so cannot be played.
These two works look both beautiful and musical, yet it would take a very special kind of musician to get many notes out of either of them.
Practically speaking, the exhibition is fairly compact and can be fully enjoyed by all the family in an hour. The biggest challenge is likely to be finding the third floor gallery in the rabbit warren that is the Barbican Centre.
The Marcel Duchamp-inspired artist says of the showcase: “I hope the exhibition will be seen by musicians – ones who don’t come to many exhibitions.”
If you have never been to an exhibition before, regardless of whether you’re a musician or not, this one is a great start.
Christian Marclay will be performing a live set for one night only at the Barbican on March 22, 2005. Tickets cost £15.
