The Clock (2010 film)
The Clock is an art installation by video artist Christian Marclay (born 1955). It is in effect a clock, but it is made of a 24-hour montage of thousands of time-related scenes from movies and some TV shows, meticulously edited to be shown in “real time”: each scene contains an indication of time (for instance, a timepiece, or a piece of dialogue) that is synchronized to show the actual time. The Clock debuted at London's White Cube gallery in 2010.
The film incorporates classic scenes such as Gary Cooper in High Noon, Woody Allen in Mighty Aphrodite at 2.59, Peter Fonda in Easy Rider at 11:40, and Patrick Macnee as John Steed looking at his elegant pocket watch at 12.05 in The Avengers.[1]
Selected Exhibitions
- 21 September to 25 November 2012 - Power Plant Contemporary Art Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 24. August to 2 September 2012 - Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
- 13 July to 1 August, 2012 - Lincoln Center, New York
- 29 March to 3 June 2012 - Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
- 24 March to 25 March 2012 - Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, USA
- 30 March to 6 August 2012 - Musée des Beaux-Arts du Canada/National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- 16 September to 31 December 2011 - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- 3 September to 5 September 2011 - Centre Pompidou, Paris
- 23 August to 20 October 2011 - Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- 6 August to 6 November 2011 - Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan
- 4 June to 27 November 2011 - Corderie dell'Arsenale, Venice Biennale, Italy
- 26 May to 31 July 2011 - Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, USA
- 22 October to 23 October - The Slaughterhouse, Plymouth, England
- 16 February to 17 April 2011 - Hayward Gallery, London, England
- 21 January to 19 February 2011 - Paula Cooper Gallery, New York City, New York, USA
- 15 October to 13 November 2010 - White Cube, London, England
Reception
The Clock has been described as “addictive” and “mesmerizing”. The Guardian called it “a masterpiece of our times”.[2] In The New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith stated that The Clock “is neither bad nor good, but sublime, maybe the greatest film you have ever seen, and you will need to come back in the morning, in the evening, and late at night, abandoning everything else, packing a sleeping bag, and decamping to the Paula Cooper Gallery until sunrise”.[3] Newsweek named Marclay one of the ten most important artists of today.[4]
At the 2011 Venice Biennale, Marclay was recognized as the best artist in the official exhibition, winning the Golden Lion for The Clock. Accepting the Golden Lion, Marclay invoked Andy Warhol, thanking the jury "for giving The Clock its fifteen minutes".[5] The film also won in the "Best Editing" category at the Boston Society of Film Critics Awards 2011.
Collections
The Clock has been sold to several art museums. The work owned by the New York collectors Jill and Peter Kraus, is a promised gift to the Museum of Modern Art.[6] In 2011, Steve Tisch pledged the $467,500 needed to buy the work for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.[7] One month later, the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, announced the acquisition of another copy. In February 2012, yet another version was acquired jointly by the Tate in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.[8]
Notes and references
Some text for this article was copied from article Christian Marclay.
- ^ Maev Kennedy (February 1, 2012), Tate buys timeshare in Christian Marclay's Clock The Guardian.
- ^ Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 4/7/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/apr/07/christian-marclay-the-clock
- ^ Zadie Smith, Killing Orson Welles at Midnight, in The New York Review of Books, 4/28/2011, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/apr/28/killing-orson-welles-midnight/
- ^ Blake Gopnik, "The 10 Most Important Artists of Today", Newsweek, 5 June 2011. Accessed 25 June 2011.
- ^ Andrew M. Goldstein and Julia Halperin, "ARTINFO's Rundown of the Winners of the Golden and Silver Lions at the 54th Venice Biennale", ARTINFO, 6 June 2011. Accessed 25 June 2011.
- ^ Carol Vogel (April 19, 2012), ‘The Clock’ To Return New York Times.
- ^ Jori Finkel (April 18, 2011),LACMA acquires 'The Clock' by Christian Marclay and a sculpture by Ai Weiwei through annual collecting event Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Maev Kennedy (February 1, 2012), Tate buys timeshare in Christian Marclay's Clock The Guardian.