Monday 13 February 2012

"The Clock" at the National Gallery


Last week on Thursday, I went to the opening of a wonderful show at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa. This show is "The Clock" by the video artist Christian Marclay. It won an award at the Venice Biennale and is an amazing work. It compiles thousands of film clips from movies, each clip merging seamlessly into the next and each with a reference to time or with a clock or watch in the clip. The video runs for 24 hours and whatever time is showing on the film clip is the same as real time.


So for instance, if this film clip was showing in the video, the time showing on the clock.......


.......would be the same time that was showing on my watch in real time. Then the video would switch to another film clip from a whole different movie showing a clock or watch that would be a minute later. And so on, for 24 hours. It was absolutely fascinating. I watched the video for about an hour and a half and wanted to stay longer but couldn't. It was a popular show and lots of people were lined up to see it. The Gallery is featuring several 24 hour viewings over the next 2 months. Some journalists have tried these 24 hour viewings. Wow! That would be an incredible experience, but I don't know if I could do it. However, I highly recommend seeing even a part of this show if you can. It is fabulous!

2 comments:

Jenny said...

Sounds fascinating. Must have been an incredible amount of work to prepare it.

Sarah said...

I want to see it!!