Christian Marclay by Brad Lay

Hello Everyone,

Found an article in Frieze, Sept 2003 on Christian Marclay, an artist who does some pretty cool things by using sound and music references in his art. He's known for both destroying musical objects such as records, in various over-the-top ways, and re-assembling them to form sculptures, plus he's collaborated with sound artists like Sonic Youth and John Zorn (both heroes of mine). The image below is a bit small but it gives you an idea of the more humorous side of what he does. It's called "If you can't lick." They're all record covers by the way. He has a whole series of these weirdities.

Another sculpture that has just been waiting to be done is this thing called "Altered Accordion". Kind of cartoon like. I reckon its beautiful.

There's a more disturbing side to what he does too, but I reckon it's this stuff that is his most powerful work (for me at least and given the little I've seen). "Guitar drag" is a video installation that features a fender stratocaster (guitar), being tied by the neck to the back of a pickup truck and dragged around at high speed. The guitar is amplified so that the soundtrack consists of the drones and feedback produced by the guitar as it is destroyed. If you like experimental noise then this is good in itself, and Neon records has released the soundtrack on 12" record which I intend to track down if possible.

It gets pretty disturbing though when he explains what this video is actually about. On the surface it appears to be referencing rock acts of instrument destruction. This is only part of it though, as he explains that it's also a reference to the lynching of James Byrd Jr, who was dragged to his death behind a pick-up truck. He states that "the piece ends up being seductive and repulsive at the same time", and I reckon that seeing it with the artists intention in mind would be a full on experience.

Cheerio

Brad

A late addition to this one - If you're interested in hearing what a guitar being dragged behind a truck sounds like, go to this site. Great stuff. You might think it's not, but I think it is. So there.

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=22959

http://www.neongallery.nu/records/neon002marclay/christianmarclay.htm

http://www.bard.edu/ccs/exhibitions/museum/marclay/images/marclay.jpg