Video art has a tricky relationship with the contemporary art scene. On the one hand it benefits from instant accessibility, speaking as it does to a crowd saturated with the medium in all walks of life, but for precisely this reason it falls foul to risks and accusations of being lowbrow. Anyone seeking an example of its merits however needs look no further than the work of Christian Marclay.
Click here to see images of Marclay's portfolio.
Marclay's video art is very much bigger than the popular genre it sits in. Indeed his entire portfolio of collage, sculpture, installation and photography as well as video bears the hallmark of a genre in itself. Duchamp and Dada together with Fluxus are clearly key influences, but it's Marclay's fascination with music, or more specifically sound, that is the biggest stamp on each of his works.
From attaching a guitar to the back of a pick-up truck (Guitar Drag, 2000) to a quad of continually holstering guns set on four walls of a square room (Crossfire, 2007), vinyl covers, cut and collaged to form meticulously reassembled Frankenstein figures (Recycled Records, 1980-86) to an orchestra playing improvised music from a series of pictorial playing cards (Shuffle, 2007) Marclay explores the recesses and possible limits of making and presenting sound in unconventional ways.
His latest work, Solo, was given its first screening at the Whitechapel Art Gallery as the climax to TOD'S Art Plus Film party. Moving away from found material, which forms the matter of his previous works, Solo is the first time Marclay himself has directed and filmed the footage used for the final piece. It features an actress, Tree Carr and an electric guitar (the guitar, signed by both was auctioned at the party) and plays with the very many symbolic associations attached to the latter.
Over 20 minutes Carr plays the guitar not with her hands but her body and clothes, simultaneously undressing so that she's left naked but for the guitar by the end. The resulting combination of visual and audio is mesmerising, not just in a voyeuristic sense, but in the extraordinary feeling of possibility and spontaneity. Carr was instructed to interact with the guitar as if she had never touched one before, so with each second one isn't sure what she might produce, which creates a sense of connection between her and the viewer.
The allusions are plenty given the female-phallic shape of the electric guitar together with the historical and cultural associations we have with the music it produces but as a whole, Solo goes further than the sum of its symbolic references. It�s a comment on the way we view and the way we hear simultaneously and in turn how these two senses are affected by our own cultural responses.
INFORMATION
Solo was premiered at TOD'S Art Plus Film Party on 6th March, 2008
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