Christian Marclay is roaring in Venice, and topping the charts back here in the states. It’s been a career week for our friend who was just awarded the prestigious “Golden Lion” at the Venice Biennale for his video project The Clock. If you’re a fan of award shows, you can watch the Golden Lion award presentation video here. The website labiennale.org says of Christian and “the Clock”:
“…over the past thirty years Marclay has made the boundaries between artistic forms and genres irrelevant. The Clock is definitely a masterpiece”.
And just a day earlier, Christian was just named one of “The 10 Most Important Artists of Today” by Newsweek (Daily Beast). The list also includes acclaimed artists Gillian Wearing, Sophie Calle, Jeff Koons, and Damien Hirst among others. Newsweek and Daily Beast reporter Blake Gopnik has this to say about Marclay:
“(Marclay) is a legend in the DJ world. He’s credited as one of the inventors of “turntablism,” the art of using spinning records as noise—and rhythm machines. And he is the artist who, more than anyone, brought sound into the hallowed halls of fine art. Last summer, when the Whitney Museum hosted a Marclay retrospective, you never knew whether you’d encounter a singer improvising from a Marclay “score*” (nothing more than a compendium of sound effects transcribed from comic books) or a musician playing Marclay’s Wind Up Guitar, a hybrid of plucked strings and music boxes.”
NOTE: *The aforementioned ‘score’ is likely a reference to the Manga Scroll, a work produced here at Graphicstudio. In January of 2012 USF students and local art enthusiasts will get your own opportunity to see a performance of the Manga Scroll like the one mentioned above, right here on the USF campus. See details below.
“Congratulations Christian!” from Graphicstudio!
Needless to say, we are very happy Christian is receiving the recognition he so richly deserves. So, we’d like to offer our own sincere “Congratulations!” for our brilliant, hard-working, colleague and friend! Christian’s appreciation for the award is palatable in the video clip below, as is his warmth and passion for the art and the festival.
Christian will be back to Graphicstudio soon to continue working on a current project with us here at GS, which should be completed by late Summer 2011. This work is scheduled to be exhibited at Gallery Koyanagi in Tokyo in October. In the photo below, you can get a sneak peak of the upcoming project. You can also see previous Marclay works produced at Graphicstudio here.
Not only will Christian return to work with Graphicstudio, he will return again to interact with USF students and local art enthusiasts. If you’d like to see and/or meet one of the Ten Most Important Artists of Today in person…and you know you do…. keep an eye on our blog for updates on the Magna Scroll performance scheduled currently for January 26th, 2012!
Save the Date | January 26th, 2012
The scheduled event will include a performance by Shelley Hirsch, a vocalist, composer, and performance artist, who will interpret and perform Christian Marclay’s Manga Scroll, (as mentioned above) a sixty foot long hand scroll composed from collaged onomatopoeias. Marclay and Hirsch will also perform Zoom Zoom, where Marclay selects and displays images from his collection of onomatopoeias, and Hirsch responds with her own unique vocal improvisation. The Manga Scroll has previously been featured at the Marclay Festival exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art just last Summer, and was read by artists and musicians from around the globe.
So stay tuned!! You might get a chance to meet one of the Ten Most Important Artists of our time right here on campus!
Graphicstudio 
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