ART-PRESENTATION: Christian Marclay-SCREAMS

Christian Ernest Marclay’s work explores the juxtaposition between sound recording, photography, video and film. Marlcay was born in California in 1955 and raised in Geneva, Switzerland. As a performer and sound artist Christian Marclay has been experimenting, composing and performing with phonograph records and turntables since 1979 to create his unique “theater of found sound,” influenced by Marcel Duchamp.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: White Cube Gallery Archive

Christian Marclay’s solo exhibition “SCREAMS” in Hong Kong, includes five large woodcut prints, created via technology from manga collages that explore the physical and cultural intersection of sound and vision, reflecting the artist’s ongoing interest in the sonic perception of still images. The starting point for this body of work was Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” (1895. Like Munch’s iconic image, which depicts a shrieking figure, Marclay’s characters express an existential trauma that is seen but not heard. This series of prints were created through a combination of collage, digital technology and traditional printmaking techniques. Fragments of screaming faces are cut out of Manga books and other comics and collaged into new, composite. Combining digital and traditional techniques, the prints originate from small-scale collages that have been cut out of Manga books and other comics, scanned, enlarged and carved into plywood or OSB boards using a computer controlled carving machine. The woodcuts are then printed using an etching press, incorporating the woodgrain pattern into the composition by carefully considering the unique texture and grain of each board before allocating them to a specific image. Christian Marclay most known work is “The Clock” (2010), a 24-hour montage of thousands of film and television images of clocks, edited together so they show the actual time. Following several years of research and production, Marclay collected together excerpts from well-known and lesser-known films including thrillers, westerns and science fiction. He then edited these so that they flow in real time. The work debuted at White Cube’s London gallery (15/10-13/11/2010) and garnered critical praise, winning the Golden Lion at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

Info: White Cube Gallery, 50 Connaught Road Central, Hong Kong, Duration: 16/11/17-13/1/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, http://whitecube.com