Christian Marclay at White Cube
Okay, I have to confess, I've never been to the White Cube gallery before and, what's even worse, I can't really explain why. I just guess it never happened that I was at Hoxton Square when it was open. Maybe also because there wasn't anything which interested me enough to go. Well, until now that is.
Having seen Christian Marclay's exhibition at the Barbican last year, I was intrigued by his wide range of working materials and his cunning wit and humor with which he puts his concepts into practice.
During the time when he showed at Barbican, I could see his piece Video Quartet (2002) and some time later again at Tate Modern.
Crossfire (2007) is his most recent video-piece and kind of a different interpretation of Video Quartet. Rather than having four screens in one row which seem to interact with each other, you now have 4 screens facing opposite to each other and the audience is virtually caught in the crossfire itself. On the screen you can see various clip samples from action movies, some of them famous, some of them not which all entail some sort of shooting. The piece itself is well orchestrated, as is everything else by Marclay, really, and goes from silent preparation to an ever intensifying gun-battle which, after its climax, slowly comes to rest.
The first analogy that comes to mind is that of sexual intercourse, at least by the intensity curve described above. And since sex and violence intermingle with each other psychologically in various forms of desire and the cinematic silver screen is one symbolic embodiment of that desire, it all kinda made sense to me in the end.
After all, what I like best about Marclay's pieces is that you can think about them for hours or not at all, but you will understand them immediately. So I might just leave it at that for now. Enjoy.
Pictures in this post are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 UK: Scotland License.
Having seen Christian Marclay's exhibition at the Barbican last year, I was intrigued by his wide range of working materials and his cunning wit and humor with which he puts his concepts into practice.
During the time when he showed at Barbican, I could see his piece Video Quartet (2002) and some time later again at Tate Modern.
Crossfire (2007) is his most recent video-piece and kind of a different interpretation of Video Quartet. Rather than having four screens in one row which seem to interact with each other, you now have 4 screens facing opposite to each other and the audience is virtually caught in the crossfire itself. On the screen you can see various clip samples from action movies, some of them famous, some of them not which all entail some sort of shooting. The piece itself is well orchestrated, as is everything else by Marclay, really, and goes from silent preparation to an ever intensifying gun-battle which, after its climax, slowly comes to rest.
The first analogy that comes to mind is that of sexual intercourse, at least by the intensity curve described above. And since sex and violence intermingle with each other psychologically in various forms of desire and the cinematic silver screen is one symbolic embodiment of that desire, it all kinda made sense to me in the end.
After all, what I like best about Marclay's pieces is that you can think about them for hours or not at all, but you will understand them immediately. So I might just leave it at that for now. Enjoy.
Pictures in this post are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 UK: Scotland License.
Labels: Christian Marclay, Video Art, White Cube London
