The third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Christian Markle
ARTinvestment.RU   14 августа 2009

ARTinvestment.RU continues to talk about artists - the third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art

September 25 in Moscow called The Third International Biennale of Contemporary Art. Among its members - the famous American artist Christian Markle (Christian Marclay), famous for its «performance», using vinyl records.

Markle was born in 1955 in the town of San Rafael (California). Childhood and adolescence spent in Geneva, where he studied at the Higher School of Fine Arts. Returning to America, Markle entered the Massachusetts Institute of Arts. Its main focus was sculpture, but like most young intellectuals at that time, he gravitated toward conceptualism: it inspired such artists as Dan Graham (Dan Graham), Vito Acconci (Vito Acconci) and Laurie Anderson (Laurie Anderson). And of course, the young artist tried himself as a musician. While avant-garde art and experimental music go hand in hand, and in order to believe the practice of the theory of Conceptual wise teachers, students of art colleges often organized punk band. According Markleya, what happened at that time in New York clubs, interested him much more than exhibitions in museums and galleries. In the late 1970's artists began to perform in a duo with his friend, guitarist Kurt Henry (Kurt Henry). As drummer found did not work, Markle invented transcribe sounds caused by worn-out record, and use it as a rhythm track. Then he realized that manipulate the plate live much as interesting.

turntables soon became the favorite tool of the artist. Most of all he was interested in «sounds that nobody needs» - such as noise, which publishes a broken record. Markle was a pioneer in the so-called turntablism - art of creating music with turntables player. His art was in great demand in the American avant-garde circles: among the musicians with whom collaborated Markle - John Zorn (John Zorn), Arto Lindsay (Arto Lindsay), Sonic Youth and others.

Among the most famous creations include Markleya «sound collages»: he cut a few «vinyls» into pieces and glue together the fragments, as your heart desires. Records were obtained with unusual compositions of small pieces of music, interspersed with clicks and crackle in places where the needle is in contact with the player's place of bonding. Often, these records came out very beautiful - the real art objects.

Markle also paid attention to the sounds that «vinyls» may issue out of players. For example, in 1984 he gave a performance called Record Players (which can be translated as «players», or «people playing on the LPs»), whose members scratching the plate, waved them, rubbed them against each other, pounding on them and in the end they broke. In 1989, the artist presented the installation «Steps», consisting of scattered on the floor gallery LPs, on which viewers were supposed to go. Then the fragments were collected and sold. Yeah, for his long career Markle spoiled a really incredible amount of records. However, most of them, according to the artist, were «worthless» - he bought them second hand. In 1998, the artist admitted that he never paid for the «blame» more than a dollar. The theme of one of his projects, called «plate without cover» (1985), is the ephemeral nature of sound. Markle salable album (which was written one of his speeches) without any packaging, with the expectation that quality will become worse and worse.

In addition to investigating the possibilities of records and players, Markle actively engaged in this topic as the «rendering of sound». He creates paintings with a variety of words denoting sounds in comics-zzzzzz, blam!, Snap, etc. His interactive project called Graffiti Composition devoted to notes. In 1996, Markle placed in various public places in Berlin 5 000 clean sheets of printed music. Some time later he came back and took a picture sheets, on which passers-written notes. Then he created one musical composition, which has since been performed several times. Draft 2005 «script» as the music made videokollazh of different abstractions and kinoepizodov. Sound interpretation of these fragments presented several musical ensembles.

Videokollazhi occupy a special place in the artist. Several years ago, London's Tate Modern gallery has acquired his installation «Videokvartet» (2002) - Four of the screen, on which are shown excerpts from Hollywood movies where the characters sing or play musical instruments. Another famous work Markleya - «Phones» (1995), a collage of scenes with actors, suitable to the phone. Apple used this idea to advertise communicators iPhone .

In the late 1980 Markle began a series of conventional, «paper» collages. «Raw material» for these works served, of course, covers vinyl records.

Among other «traditional» the artist's works - sculptures of musical instruments. In 1999, a «Drums» with incredibly high (4 meters!) Plates, and in 2000 - «virtuoso», a huge accordion, 7,6 meters in length.

On the account of the artist - exhibitions in the gallery Tate Modern (London), the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Gallery White Cube (London), Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), New National Gallery (Berlin ), etc. In Moscow Markleya work will be exhibited in the main project of the Moscow Biennale (Center of Contemporary Culture «Garage», September 25 - October 25).

At the bidding of Markleya exhibited rarely - three or four times a year. The most expensive work of the artist ever sold at auction, is a printmaking called Shtoom, to take ownership of April 1, 2008 at New York auction Christie's. He exceeded the upper estimate more than half - 26 thousand dollars in the evaluation of thousands of 8.12. However, since any similar fingerprint to repeat this success was not possible. But the painting «abstract music», which appeared on June 19 this year at the Zurich auction Koller, went for 17 thousand Swiss francs (15,7 thousand dollars) for Estimé 6-7,5 thousand.

small documentary about the work of Christian Markleya can see here .

Material prepared Yulia Maximova, AI

Source: A Christian Marclay mini documentary , frieze.com , guardian.co.uk , paulacoopergallery.com , artprice.com , artinvestment.ru

About the participants in the third Moscow Biennale of contemporary art can be found:

third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. AEC F