Though video may have killed the radio star in the ’80s,
the repercussions of said assassination are still being felt today,
according to DJ and sound artist Christian Marclay.
“We live in a world where the visual is the dominant theme
““ we’ve been taught that an image is worth a thousand
words,” Marclay said. “Image and sound are coming
together through television and even the Internet now, and you
can’t think of a song without thinking of its MTV
clip.”
Twenty years worth of Marclay’s artistic work, examining
these connections between the visual and the audible, will be on
display at the UCLA Hammer Museum from June 1 to Aug. 31 in his
first-ever retrospective. Over 60 pieces in a variety of media from
video to installation, and collage to sculpture, have been gathered
in order to give visitors a representative taste of Marclay’s
talent.
Complementing the exhibition, four live music performances will
be held, two of which will feature Marclay’s unique DJing
skills. For the opening performance on June 5 at 7:30 p.m., Marclay
will be performing with Lee Ranaldo, an original member of Sonic
Youth.
Marclay said he felt the live performances were an essential
aspect to the exhibit because music in and of itself is a very
social and collaborative art. His manner of creating sound, he
added, is also very artistic in that he chooses to emphasize
unwanted noise people don’t and won’t necessarily
consider musical.
“I play my turntables in a very unconventional way,”
he said. “I don’t even call myself a DJ. … I’m
not just interested in what’s in the groove, or that sound
that’s recorded on that record, but any sound that I can
create.”
While Marclay is now known to be a veritable DJ, with sound as
his main muse, it was his interest in art that actually turned him
on to music. Raised in Switzerland, Marclay studied art at
Geneva’s Ecole Superieure d’Art Visuel, and later
earned his Bachelors of Fine Arts at the Massachusetts College of
Art, Boston.
“I wanted to put the emphasis on sound for once,”
Marclay said. “When you think of art … you think of
paintings or sculptures, things to look at. You don’t think
of music and sound. Art shouldn’t be limited to the visual
““ we experience things using all our senses.”
To explore this marriage of sound and art, Marclay has
experimented with a wide range of media, most recently video. This
exhibit will feature one such recent piece, “Video
Quartet,” which is a musical composition made out of visual
film clips of a musician or actor making a sound playing
simultaneously on four screens. According to the artist, he made
sure not to modify the sound or images of the clips in any way
quartet to create a composition of pure elements.
For Marclay, his artistic rewards come from being able to widen
the exact definition of music and bringing sound once again to the
forefront of consciousness. But another added bonus is that his
pieces make art an accessible interest to people who tend to see
museum-going as a somewhat stale activity.
“I deal with things that we’re all very familiar
with ““ there’s nothing mysterious,” Marclay
said.
“Christian Marclay” will be at the Hammer Museum,
10899 Wilshire Blvd., through August 31. Admission is free for
students, faculty and staff and free for everyone Thursdays. For
more information and museum hours call (310) 443-7000, or visit
www.hammer.ucla.edu.