Ephemera

Born in California in 1955, Christian Marclay combines sources as varied as conceptual art, DJ culture, Fluxus, the history of film, punk rock, and material culture. His work is often collage in both physical and conceptual form.

For the currently exhibited work, the artist spent years accumulating an eclectic assortment of depictions of musical notations that he found in various advertisements, brochures, candy wrappers, illustrations, menus, etc.  From this collection of printed musical motifs, Marclay created a series of 28 digitally-collaged sheets as musical scores intended to be played, as well as viewed. In this work, a viewer or performer encounters seemingly unplayable elements (keys of G lost in emptiness or staves whose lines wander and fray) and yet in the new context with unexpected juxtapositions, Marclay gives new poetic life to these ephemera.