Christian Marclay Quotes

• You start with an idea but then so many things can happen.

  Christian Marclay

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• You can get so many sounds out of one record. Every record can be used in some way.

  Christian Marclay

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• With improvisation, I just do it. It might be a total failure but then you just throw the dice again.

  Christian Marclay

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• When you take something apart, you get a great sense of what it took to originally put it together.

  Christian Marclay

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• We go to the movies to forget about time, to be in a dream state. And it’s entertainment, distraction, from the fact that everything is kind of crumbling in front of our eyes.

  Christian Marclay

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• Unlike sitting at a computer screen, printing is very direct and hands-on.

  Christian Marclay

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• These things I sample, or clip, are things that we share – music, films, sounds. It triggers a layer of participation from the audience as they recognize the material and remember it.

  Christian Marclay

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• The process of editing is what I enjoy most – putting the pieces together and making sense out of them.

  Christian Marclay

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• Since I was a child I have always been cutting things out and gluing them together rather than drawing them.

  Christian Marclay

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• ‘Record Without A Cover’ was about allowing the medium to come through, making a record that was not a document of a performance but a record that could change with time, and would be different from one copy to the next.

  Christian Marclay

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• People who care about records are always giving me a hard time. I mean, I would destroy records in performances, and break them, and whatever I could do to them to create a sound that was something else than just the sound that was in the groove.

  Christian Marclay

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• It’s the way life is, I suppose. Whatever happens, you deal with it.

  Christian Marclay

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• It’s good to get away from the editing suite. It’s very unhealthy to be sitting in front of the screen for too long.

  Christian Marclay

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• If you make something good and interesting and not ridiculing someone or being offensive, the creators of the original material will like it.

  Christian Marclay

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• If the music in a groove fits with what you’re playing, then play it; if not, then you can play it backwards. If that doesn’t work, you try it at a different speed. If it really doesn’t work you just break it. The whole ritual to put a record on a turntable just to listen to it, I don’t do that too often.

  Christian Marclay

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• I’ve never been a big cinephile, which may be why I could treat ‘The Clock’ like a puzzle and force the pieces to fit together in odd ways.

  Christian Marclay

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• I have never been much of a painter.

  Christian Marclay

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• I admire the abstract expressionists and pop artists so right now I’m referencing American ’60s art and at the same time referencing Japanese manga culture.

  Christian Marclay

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• Every person’s remembering will be different. That engagement is important, I think.

  Christian Marclay

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• As an artist, you’re always somewhat obscure. We’re not talking Hollywood.

  Christian Marclay

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Christian Marclay (21)

Birth:	11th January, 1955
Nationality:	American, Swiss
Profession:	Artist, Composer

About

Christian Ernest Marclay was born in San Rafael, California. He is an American-Swiss  visual artist and composer. Marclay's work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film. His own use of turntables and records, beginning in the late 1970s, was developed independently of but roughly parallel to hip hop's use of the instrument. Marclay has performed and recorded both solo and in collaboration with many musicians, including John Zorn, William Hooker, Elliott Sharp, Otomo Yoshihide, Butch Morris, Shelley Hirsch, Flo Kaufmann and Crevice; he has also performed with the group Sonic Youth, and in other projects with Sonic Youth's members.

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Today's Anniversary - 17th November

Births

• 1951 - Stephen Root
• 1866 - Voltairine De Cleyre
• 1937 - Peter Edward Cook
• 1942 - Martin Scorsese
• 1978 - Rachel McAdams

Deaths

• 2003 - Don Gibson
• 2002 - Abba Eban
• 1988 - Sheilah Graham
• 1995 - Marguerite Young
• 1858 - Robert Owen