For those of you who are fans of Christian Marclay, there is a great festival going on right now at the Whitney Museum until September 26th. The fourth floor is dedicated to the ground-breaking work of this great visual and sound artist with a listening lounge for his tracks, a display of his graphic scores and vinyl records that he cut and pasted as a revolutionary turntablist. There is also a piece that is constantly “in progress” on a gigantic chalkboard on the wall that invites visitors to contribute to the score. The best part of this whole festival are the numerous performances going on–usually one or two every day–featuring other musicians/improvisors that worked with Marclay through the years.  I was lucky enough to catch a show of Christian performing on Saturday with Terry Hirsch on voice. It was an improvised show using  photographs of sonic words immersed in everyday life as the “score” for Terry to improvise to.
I am definitely planning on going to several more performances–there were two works in particular that caught my interest. One piece is an improvisation with his collection of one-of-a-kind handbells that are currently on display at the Whitney. The second piece will be performed on a guitar with a bunch of music boxes mounted inside the instrument. All you see on display is a guitar with a bunch of pegs sticking out of it for the music boxes. Not being able to see the mechanism  certainly adds a mystery to the music. There are more pieces of his to be performed until September 26th, so check the Whitney site for more details.