CHRISTIAN MARCLAY
ACTIONS
Aargauer Kunsthaus
Aargauerplatz - Aarau
30/8/2015 - 15/11/2015
While music is now a common medium within today’s art, Marclay discovered it as material for the visual arts as early as the 1970s. As a pioneer of turntablism, performer, and artist he has since received international recognition for his sound-based collages, videos, sculptures, paintings, and photographs.
Featuring roughly 120 works, Action traces an arc in Christian Marclay’s artistic practice since the late 1980s by placing his fascination with onomatopoeia at center stage. In addition to the immersive, spaceactivating video animation Surround Sounds (2015), the exhibition also includes early and lesser-known works as well as a large number of new paintings and works on paper, which Marclay has created over the course of the last three years.
Comic books are key to Marclay’s interest in the visualization of sound. He focuses on onomatopoetic expressions that in comics convey the acoustic dimension of the narrative and, in doing so, not only represent sound, but also energy, movement, or drama – in short, "Action." This preoccupation continues in his most recent works which explore the onomatopoetic potential of written words and, by means of a complex procedure, create colorful, vocable collages that are based on a superimposition of printmaking and painting. The intention here is to pair words culled from comics with correlative painterly gestures. In one painting, for example, a centrally placed SPLAT is printed on top of red paint splatter that together form a coherent whole. In essence, the onomatopoeias printed on canvas or paper were the score for the artist’s painterly actions. They are humorously evocative of the sounds made by spraying, pouring, or smudging paint. Marclay’s working method, which incorporates chance, gravity, and materiality, as well as his own physicality, are reminiscent of Action Painting, a style made popular during the 1950s by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Klein.
Also an important source of inspiration for Marclay has been Japanese culture, particularly Japanese Scrolls. He combines this traditional Eastern medium with elements of Western comics. For his Hanging Scrolls (2011), which are presented here for the first time in Europe, Hächler Fuhrimann Architects have created a contemporary interpretation of a Japanese teahouse in collaboration with the artist. Within the exhibition this pavilion-like structure serves as both platform and stage for traditional tea ceremonies, musical performances, and a series of talks and lectures in which various themes of Marclay’s work are discussed. Vocalists will interpret Manga Scroll (2010) and Zoom Zoom (2007 - 2015), graphic scores which reflect his interest in both the visual and performing arts.
Marclay’s practice is shaped by the principle of "sampling," transforming readymade materials as he did with vinyl records throughout the 1980s and more recently with found film footage. In contrast to those works, the ones presented in Action are entirely silent but preoccupied with evoking sound within the viewer, making us aware how intensely we hear with our eyes. Situated at the dynamic intersection of movement and stasis, sound and silence, word and image, the Aarau exhibition points to an important aspect of Marclay’s artistic investigation, which is here examined for the first time.
Christian Marclay (b. 1955) grew up in Geneva where he attended the École Supérieure d'Art Visuel from 1975 until 1977. He subsequently continued his studies at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and at Cooper Union in New York (1977 – 1980). Since the late 1970s he has been active as a musician and composer. He lives in London and New York. In 1995 he represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale.
Image: Christian Marclay; Actions: Plish Plip Plap Plop (No. 3), 2013 (Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York - Photo: Will Lytch)
Aargauer Kunsthaus
Aargauerplatz - Aarau
30/8/2015 - 15/11/2015
While music is now a common medium within today’s art, Marclay discovered it as material for the visual arts as early as the 1970s. As a pioneer of turntablism, performer, and artist he has since received international recognition for his sound-based collages, videos, sculptures, paintings, and photographs.
Featuring roughly 120 works, Action traces an arc in Christian Marclay’s artistic practice since the late 1980s by placing his fascination with onomatopoeia at center stage. In addition to the immersive, spaceactivating video animation Surround Sounds (2015), the exhibition also includes early and lesser-known works as well as a large number of new paintings and works on paper, which Marclay has created over the course of the last three years.
Comic books are key to Marclay’s interest in the visualization of sound. He focuses on onomatopoetic expressions that in comics convey the acoustic dimension of the narrative and, in doing so, not only represent sound, but also energy, movement, or drama – in short, "Action." This preoccupation continues in his most recent works which explore the onomatopoetic potential of written words and, by means of a complex procedure, create colorful, vocable collages that are based on a superimposition of printmaking and painting. The intention here is to pair words culled from comics with correlative painterly gestures. In one painting, for example, a centrally placed SPLAT is printed on top of red paint splatter that together form a coherent whole. In essence, the onomatopoeias printed on canvas or paper were the score for the artist’s painterly actions. They are humorously evocative of the sounds made by spraying, pouring, or smudging paint. Marclay’s working method, which incorporates chance, gravity, and materiality, as well as his own physicality, are reminiscent of Action Painting, a style made popular during the 1950s by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Klein.
Also an important source of inspiration for Marclay has been Japanese culture, particularly Japanese Scrolls. He combines this traditional Eastern medium with elements of Western comics. For his Hanging Scrolls (2011), which are presented here for the first time in Europe, Hächler Fuhrimann Architects have created a contemporary interpretation of a Japanese teahouse in collaboration with the artist. Within the exhibition this pavilion-like structure serves as both platform and stage for traditional tea ceremonies, musical performances, and a series of talks and lectures in which various themes of Marclay’s work are discussed. Vocalists will interpret Manga Scroll (2010) and Zoom Zoom (2007 - 2015), graphic scores which reflect his interest in both the visual and performing arts.
Marclay’s practice is shaped by the principle of "sampling," transforming readymade materials as he did with vinyl records throughout the 1980s and more recently with found film footage. In contrast to those works, the ones presented in Action are entirely silent but preoccupied with evoking sound within the viewer, making us aware how intensely we hear with our eyes. Situated at the dynamic intersection of movement and stasis, sound and silence, word and image, the Aarau exhibition points to an important aspect of Marclay’s artistic investigation, which is here examined for the first time.
Christian Marclay (b. 1955) grew up in Geneva where he attended the École Supérieure d'Art Visuel from 1975 until 1977. He subsequently continued his studies at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and at Cooper Union in New York (1977 – 1980). Since the late 1970s he has been active as a musician and composer. He lives in London and New York. In 1995 he represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale.
Image: Christian Marclay; Actions: Plish Plip Plap Plop (No. 3), 2013 (Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York - Photo: Will Lytch)
