Christian Marclay – The Clock review: Film-spotting and giddy simultaneity

This is the 30th outing worldwide in eight years for Christian Marclay’s The Clock – and its third in London… it’s a complete joy, not to be missed

Christian Marclay: The Clock

Tate Modern, London                                                                               Until Jan 20 

Rating:

Ten years ago the Swiss-American artist assembled a vast anthology of extracts from film and TV, mostly a few seconds long. The resulting film, with some 10,000 extracts, runs for 24 hours. The thing that all the extracts have in common is a reference to the time – a glimpsed clock, a watch, a complaint that it’s already quarter to four.

He arranged them in order, and the film runs in synchrony with the real time.

The result is a giddy simultaneity; the clock face in an excerpt from Little Miss Sunshine says it’s five past three, and it’s as correct as the watch on your wrist.

There is the joy of seeing the film’s conventions turned inside out, the grandfather clock in the background suddenly turning into the hero of the day-long narrative we all live within

There is the joy of seeing the film’s conventions turned inside out, the grandfather clock in the background suddenly turning into the hero of the day-long narrative we all live within

The pleasures of Marclay’s work are many, and I went in intending to stay half an hour before remaining for three. Most of the films are American, with a few British, some French, an occasional Japanese. 

If you watched them all, they would probably share some conventions. So the minutes before each hour are a frantic rising of tension, as the bomb ticks down or the deadline descends. Quarter-past is a regular marker of existential boredom; there is a lot of mooning into space.

There is the joy of spotting the film – I don’t think anyone will be able to do them all. 

Marclay and his team were quite indifferent to the artistic quality of the original, and obscure Seventies tripe rubs up against Satyajit Ray’s Charulata, the weird Jack Nicholson musical On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, James Bond outings and Jean-Paul Belmondo on a train in the Sixties. 

And there is the joy of seeing the film’s conventions turned inside out, the grandfather clock in the background suddenly turning into the hero of the day-long narrative we all live within.

This is The Clock’s 30th outing worldwide in eight years and its third in London. It’s a complete joy, not to be missed.

 

Artes Mundi 8

National Museum, Cardiff                                                                  Until Feb 24 

Rating:

Anna Boghiguian: A Meteor Fell From The Sky

Anna Boghiguian: A Meteor Fell From The Sky

Its organisers have long tried to bill Artes Mundi as an alternative to the Turner Prize. Now in its eighth edition, it includes work in an array of media. 

Nigeria’s Otobong Nkanga, for example, has created a tapestry depicting human figures with metal rails for body parts.

Artes Mundi is an unashamedly political prize, with the five exhibited artists selected on grounds of their ‘exploring the biggest issues facing our world’. 

The winner of the £40,000 prize will be announced on January 24, but it’s hard to imagine too many people on tenterhooks about the outcome: this show’s offerings rather blend into one. 

At least the Turner Prize tends to elicit a strong response.

Alastair Smart 

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