Christian Marclay

On loan from the artist, Christian Marclay's video work The Clock (2010) is an internationally acclaimed masterwork of video art, composed of thousands of film excerpts illuminating the passage of time by means of time-related references, among them images of clocks, watches, or announcements identifying specific times of the day. Marclay extracted each of these moments from its original context to form a 24-hour montage that unfolds according to his reconstruction in real time. The Clock premiered in London in October, 2010, and has since been presented in New York, Los Angeles, Venice, and Moscow. Twenty-four-hour screenings have attracted long lines and captivated audiences, with many viewers staying to absorb the work for hours at a time. Marclay won the coveted Golden Lion award at the 2011 Venice Biennale, where The Clock was featured in the Biennale's central exhibition. "Synchronized with local time at each exhibition venue, Marclay's The Clock conflates cinematic and actual time, revealing each passing moment as a wellspring of alternately suspenseful, tragic, and romantic narrative possibilities. By referencing actual time specifically, wherever it is on display, The Clock transforms the usual sensation of artificial "cinematic time" into the thrilling sensation of real time in the exhibition gallery. Collage has been a recurring strategy for American artist Christian Marclay since the late 1970s, when, as a pioneering turntablist, he began mixing sounds and recordings before turning to an ever wider range of mediums, including sculpture, photography, and performance. His video work often involves audiovisual assemblage compiled from film excerpts, recontextualizing fragments of modern movie culture into new creative compositions.