Christian Marclay is a contemporary artist whose work over the years has been an evolution of multi-media synthesis in innovative, and sometimes startling ways. Although born in California in 1955, he spent many of his formative years in Switzerland. Today he resides in New York. As a young man, he took interest in conceptual artists such as Joseph Beuys, and in the international emergence of the Fluxus movement of the 60s and 70s, sometimes referred to as a Neo-Dadaist trend. Fluxus artists were very much into blending various media and performance together.
Marclay was perhaps also influenced by the 'noise' performances of John Cage in the 50s, as well. He began playing with old scratchy records he would pick up at thrift stores and junk shops. A stuck groove in a record was a found backbeat, something to incorporate into a larger composition as though it were a drum track. In a way, Marclay was one of those pioneers who gave rise to the turntablism characteristic of the scratch and hip-hop we know today. Of course, he took the concept off in his own direction, using the record player as an instrument for creating film soundtracks.
In 2000, Marclay went to Texas, strapped an amplifier to the back of a flat bed truck, and dragged a Fender guitar around both on-road and off-road as a performance that easily brought to mind the guitar smashing tendencies of certain rockers. It also lent itself to a more subliminal reminiscence of the history of lynchings in the American south.
Most recently, his astonishing film 'The Clock' just had it's U.S. premiere in the U.S. While I haven't seen it, it is described as a masterpiece by many. The film is a 24 hour long collage/montage of thousands of film clips that cross genre and era. The clips, themselves, state the passing of time either through the spoken voice of an actor, or in cut-aways to a ticking clock, a glance to the face of a watch, a clock-tower, and so on. This occurs minute-by-minute for 24 hours. Additionally, when the film is shown in any venue it is synched with the real time of that particular city. If you went into the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York at 1:35pm, to watch the film, it would be 1:35 pm in the film as well. If you left at 4:30pm in the film, it would be 4:30pm as you stepped back out into the city. Filmic time becomes real time. Real time becomes cinematic. The two merge.
Below are two video clips. One is some news coverage regarding The Clock. The other, is about seven minutes of Marclay's Guitar Drag, 2000.
Regarding, The Clock: (double click on screen for full image)
Regarding, Guitar Drag, 2000: (double click on screen for full image)
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
My 15 Minutes of Trailer Trash Fame.
A number of years ago, I took a wealthy farmer up on a proposal that I manage one of his farms and look after his cattle. I would have free housing on this 200 acre spread of rolling pasture land. It was one of the last remaining farms in the middle of a booming area south of Nashville called Brentwood. Brentwood is a very upscale community of posh McMansions, and gleaming corporate headquarters. The farmer himself, lived on another farm some 30 miles south. So, I was to live smack-dab in the middle of all ritzy Brentwood, in a vintage 50's house trailer in a pastoral setting. Wonderful!
Click on photos to enlarge, if you like.
It was a great gig for about two years. But, then the farmer sold the land to the City of Brentwood for a proposed new high school. So, my days were numbered. The house trailer was actually a very pleasant place to live. A front porch, and a deck on the back. And two bedrooms, one of which I used as a studio, of sorts. It seems I was one of the last trailers in Brentwood, perhaps even the very last.
Primarily my responsibility here was to herd the 50 or so head of cattle from one pasture to another, and in the winter throw them some hay. My dog, Life, had a knack for helping out in this herding process. Other than those chores, it was a pretty laid back life.
Each of the fenced off pastures had its own watering hole, and in the summer, the cows liked to wade out into these and chill out a bit.
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When surveyors eventually began coming out to survey the ground around this abandoned house located near my trailer, they decided they should call the state archeology people to poke around. Well, poke around they did. And they ultimately unearthed 12 unmarked graves presumed to hold the remains of some slaves of a by-gone era. This bought an additional month or two while they mapped out the grave locations. Although the new high school was eventually built on this farm, the grave site is now a fenced- in protected area with a historical marker.
Well, for awhile some reporters were coming out, including a local tv news channel. And then, this amusing article appeared in the Tennessean newspaper. I was briefly famous!! (If you double click on the article, you can probably read this account!)
Click on photos to enlarge, if you like.
It was a great gig for about two years. But, then the farmer sold the land to the City of Brentwood for a proposed new high school. So, my days were numbered. The house trailer was actually a very pleasant place to live. A front porch, and a deck on the back. And two bedrooms, one of which I used as a studio, of sorts. It seems I was one of the last trailers in Brentwood, perhaps even the very last.
Primarily my responsibility here was to herd the 50 or so head of cattle from one pasture to another, and in the winter throw them some hay. My dog, Life, had a knack for helping out in this herding process. Other than those chores, it was a pretty laid back life.
Each of the fenced off pastures had its own watering hole, and in the summer, the cows liked to wade out into these and chill out a bit.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572452575111193474" />When surveyors eventually began coming out to survey the ground around this abandoned house located near my trailer, they decided they should call the state archeology people to poke around. Well, poke around they did. And they ultimately unearthed 12 unmarked graves presumed to hold the remains of some slaves of a by-gone era. This bought an additional month or two while they mapped out the grave locations. Although the new high school was eventually built on this farm, the grave site is now a fenced- in protected area with a historical marker.
Well, for awhile some reporters were coming out, including a local tv news channel. And then, this amusing article appeared in the Tennessean newspaper. I was briefly famous!! (If you double click on the article, you can probably read this account!)
Sunday, February 6, 2011
About Big Birds and New Mexico Living.
For awhile (in the mid-late 90s) I made frequent and lengthy trips down to southern New Mexico to work on numerous projects with Olin Calk. We dragged an old shed to the back of his ranch and put it down beneath a shady Chinese Elm. That became my 'bunkhouse'. We worked together on art and re-cycling projects, and these culminated in one where we built the 'world's largest roadrunner' out of non-degradable trash from the Las Cruces landfill.
I dressed up the door with a window, and a little bit of trim wood.
Some decor for the side of the shack. I called this one, 'Wolf in Sheep's Clothing".
Mesquite was the wood of choice for cook-outs, but I scavenged a few limbs to make a chair for the shack.
Some friends from Tennessee hung around for a few days.
A small bird stands outside the shack. We made six of these in order to study how best to build the big one. The big one would be 21 feet tall, and 40 feet long, so we needed to know what we were doing.
Thanks to the Any Mountain Bluegrass boys, and some other talented pickers, there was often a festive atmosphere going on.
I know it looks like I had one too many here, but I was framed! The neighboring rancher called me over for a beer with some of his buddies. They rigged a lawn chair so it would collapse upon sitting in it. I was handed a cold beer, and told to 'take a load off'. They were ready to snap the shot as I went down. However, take note. I did not spill the beer!
The daughters of a friend pose as nicely mannered young ladies.
Actually, they were very serious little mischief makers!
Olin makes a mirror frame for a friend out of Valentine candy!
And here, she expresses her appreciation!
To get started on the big roadrunner, we had to build a sturdy armature or skeleton. Sometimes it was better to work in the cooler air of night.
The armature is constructed primarily of 1" re-bar iron, although the legs were heavier gauge to withstand the weight, and the desert winds.
The roadrunner's torso is loaded on a flatbed for a ride out to the landfill where we will attach the head, and tail feathers.
We begin to dress the bird out in trash. Here, automobile headlights make nice eyes, and some rusty roofing tin makes a nice surface for the wings that we would later layer over with more trash.
It is pretty hot working under the desert sun, so we made a shady oasis on the edge of the landfill, using thrown away chairs, and even a big plastic palm tree!
We made regular trips to the dumpster behind the local Goodwill to retrieve shoes they had discarded. We cut the shoes up on a band saw, and used the soles for 'feathering' the bird. Darker shoes on the neck.
The roadrunner's breast is typically 'whitish', so we used white shoe soles there.
The bird sits surrounded with trash we gathered from the landfill for possible use.
The big bird's final perch on a mesa overlooking Interstate 10 and the city of Las Cruces.
One of the smaller bird models loaded for a trip to Santa Fe, and the Children's Museum there.
One of many reasons New Mexico is called The Land of Enchantment. The sunsets.
I dressed up the door with a window, and a little bit of trim wood.
Some decor for the side of the shack. I called this one, 'Wolf in Sheep's Clothing".
Mesquite was the wood of choice for cook-outs, but I scavenged a few limbs to make a chair for the shack.
Some friends from Tennessee hung around for a few days.
A small bird stands outside the shack. We made six of these in order to study how best to build the big one. The big one would be 21 feet tall, and 40 feet long, so we needed to know what we were doing.
Thanks to the Any Mountain Bluegrass boys, and some other talented pickers, there was often a festive atmosphere going on.
I know it looks like I had one too many here, but I was framed! The neighboring rancher called me over for a beer with some of his buddies. They rigged a lawn chair so it would collapse upon sitting in it. I was handed a cold beer, and told to 'take a load off'. They were ready to snap the shot as I went down. However, take note. I did not spill the beer!
The daughters of a friend pose as nicely mannered young ladies.
Actually, they were very serious little mischief makers!
Olin makes a mirror frame for a friend out of Valentine candy!
And here, she expresses her appreciation!
To get started on the big roadrunner, we had to build a sturdy armature or skeleton. Sometimes it was better to work in the cooler air of night.
The armature is constructed primarily of 1" re-bar iron, although the legs were heavier gauge to withstand the weight, and the desert winds.
The roadrunner's torso is loaded on a flatbed for a ride out to the landfill where we will attach the head, and tail feathers.
We begin to dress the bird out in trash. Here, automobile headlights make nice eyes, and some rusty roofing tin makes a nice surface for the wings that we would later layer over with more trash.
It is pretty hot working under the desert sun, so we made a shady oasis on the edge of the landfill, using thrown away chairs, and even a big plastic palm tree!
We made regular trips to the dumpster behind the local Goodwill to retrieve shoes they had discarded. We cut the shoes up on a band saw, and used the soles for 'feathering' the bird. Darker shoes on the neck.
The roadrunner's breast is typically 'whitish', so we used white shoe soles there.
The bird sits surrounded with trash we gathered from the landfill for possible use.
The big bird's final perch on a mesa overlooking Interstate 10 and the city of Las Cruces.
One of the smaller bird models loaded for a trip to Santa Fe, and the Children's Museum there.
One of many reasons New Mexico is called The Land of Enchantment. The sunsets.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Provincetown, the Portland Gale, and Susan Glaspell
Provincetown, located on the Eastern most tip of Cape Cod, was primarily a fishing village in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But in 1898, something occurred that changed the face of Provincetown. It was a destructive storm that laid waste to many parts of the New England coast. The storm was known as the Portland Gale, because of a ship (the S.S. Portland) that went down in a sea turned ferocious by hurricane-force winds And Provincetown was not spared. This brings us to Susan Glaspell, an aspiring playwright and novelist who lived in Provincetown.
Susan and her husband lived in Provincetown, and often spent their summers in Greenvich Village. It seems artists of many kinds have a way of gravitating to hubs of creativity, and Greenwich Village was one such place. It wasn't long before Susan was inviting poets, writers, painters and others to her house in Provincetown. At this time, many of the wharves and piers and fishing warehouses there lay largely abandoned due to the Portland Gale. This coincidence led to what became a seasonal migration of Greenwich Village artists to Provincetown. In 1899, Charles Hawthorne established a school of art there which drew art students to the scenic coastal panorama, and sensational light. the school's emphasis was on figure painting and impressionism. It was called the Cape Cod School of Art. Soon, the abandoned structures of the storm-damaged wharves came alive with artistic endeavors of many kinds, and Provincetown was re-born as an art colony.
Susan Glaspell and her husband, George Cram Cook often hosted dramatic readings at their house. But in 1915, they acquired a warehouse on the wharf and with a small group of others, founded the Provincetown Players. One of the first plays read there was "Suppressed Desires" co-written by Glaspell and Cook. Shortly thereafter, Glaspell arranged the first ever reading of a play by Eugene O'Neill, "Bound East for Cardiff". The Provincetown Players quickly found a place in the annals of theatre history, hosting many notable performances by the likes of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Dreiser, and others.
For more about the remarkable Susan Glaspell, see today's post on Yesterday's Myth.
Susan and her husband lived in Provincetown, and often spent their summers in Greenvich Village. It seems artists of many kinds have a way of gravitating to hubs of creativity, and Greenwich Village was one such place. It wasn't long before Susan was inviting poets, writers, painters and others to her house in Provincetown. At this time, many of the wharves and piers and fishing warehouses there lay largely abandoned due to the Portland Gale. This coincidence led to what became a seasonal migration of Greenwich Village artists to Provincetown. In 1899, Charles Hawthorne established a school of art there which drew art students to the scenic coastal panorama, and sensational light. the school's emphasis was on figure painting and impressionism. It was called the Cape Cod School of Art. Soon, the abandoned structures of the storm-damaged wharves came alive with artistic endeavors of many kinds, and Provincetown was re-born as an art colony.
Susan Glaspell and her husband, George Cram Cook often hosted dramatic readings at their house. But in 1915, they acquired a warehouse on the wharf and with a small group of others, founded the Provincetown Players. One of the first plays read there was "Suppressed Desires" co-written by Glaspell and Cook. Shortly thereafter, Glaspell arranged the first ever reading of a play by Eugene O'Neill, "Bound East for Cardiff". The Provincetown Players quickly found a place in the annals of theatre history, hosting many notable performances by the likes of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Dreiser, and others.
For more about the remarkable Susan Glaspell, see today's post on Yesterday's Myth.
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