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Telephones
Artist: Christian Marclay (American, born 1955)
Date: 1995
Dimensions:
Running time 7:30 minutes
Medium: DVD
Classification: Electronic Media
Credit Line: Museum Purchase, by exchange
Object number: 2005.44
Label Text:Christian Marclay is both visual artist and musician, and well known in both worlds. After moving to New York in 1977 to study art, Marclay found himself drawn to the music scene at the height of the punk rock movement. Wanting to make music, but lacking a formal education in the subject, he began experimenting in sound. A critic has explained that Marclay "is often credited with being among the first DJs to sample and mix the works of others into unique compositions." The subject of a 2003 mid-career retrospective at the UCLA Hammer Museum, Marclay has spent more than two decades exploring the world of sound through a variety of media and often illuminating intersections of sound recording, film, photography and mass culture. While his work frequently has an immediate surface or entertainment appeal, none are merely witty meditations on popular culture. As a reviewer of the Hammer exhibition explained, "Marclay's work ultimately exploits the tension between the fugitive and the intransigent." Often this tension is clearly present in Marclay's frequent use of ineffectual or inadequate communication - and, unsurprisingly, the telephone is a repeating presence in many of his works.
Not on view