The Clock
Christian Marclay

SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

The Clock (2010), an exceptional video work by artist Christian Marclay, will be on view May 9 – 25 for 24 hours a day at SALT Beyoğlu.

In The Clock, Marclay samples thousands of excerpts from the history of cinema that indicate the passage of time. Wristwatches, clock towers, buzzing alarms, and even the occasional cuckoo clock are stripped from their original narrative context and re-edited chronologically into a 24-hour montage that unfolds in real time. Juxtaposing a multitude of filmic periods, settings, styles, and genres The Clock uncannily unifies these disparate fragments into a coherent whole through which the relentless march of time becomes its own narrative.

Synchronised to local time, The Clock reveals each passing minute as a repository for high drama, blockbuster suspense, ordinary workaday ritual, and grand romance. Functioning as a real clock, it tells visitors the precise time of day as they watch the work.

The result of three years of intensive research and production, The Clock has been called “a masterpiece of our times” (The Guardian), “utterly transfixing” (The Huffington Post) and was awarded the Golden Lion for best artwork at the 54th Venice Biennale. It has captivated viewers all over the world, minute by minute, evoking an eternal dilemma: Time waits for no one, for The Clock will be ticking before we arrive and will continue to do so after we have left.

The Clock has been exhibited internationally including in London, New York, Jerusalem, Ottawa, Seoul, Venice, Moscow, Toronto and Los Angeles. It premiered in October 2010 at White Cube in London, and in January 2011 at Paula Cooper in New York. It has since been exhibited at the 54^th Venice Biennale as part of the exhibition Illuminations, at the Hayward Gallery as part of British Art Show: 7, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (all 2011); at the Lincoln Art Center, New York (2012); at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (both 2013); and most recently at the Guggenheim Bilbao (ongoing through May 18, 2014).

Christian Marclay has exhibited his work for more than three decades in museums around the world. His 2003 retrospective, which originated at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, traveled to other North American institutions as well as venues in France, Switzerland and Great Britain. The touring exhibition Replay, focusing on his video work, originated at the Cité de la Musique, Paris, in 2007 and was presented at DHC/ART in Montreal (2008). In 2010, the Whitney Museum of American Art organized Christian Marclay: Festival, a one-person exhibition organized around Marclay’s “graphic scores,” works to be interpreted by musicians as scores for performances.

During the presentation of The Clock the entrance level of SALT Beyoğlu will be open for 24 hours a day from May 9 – 25. The Clock will be on view in the Walk-in Cinema, which has been specially reconfigured for the work during this period. Please note that SALT Beyoğlu is closed from Sunday 18.00 - Tuesday 12.00 noon.

With support from SAHA


The Clock, Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York and White Cube, London