Christian Marclay exhibit at Whitney Museum makes its own kind of music

Participating in the artwork becomes possible at the Whitney Museum’s latest exhibit, “Christian Marclay: Festival.” Marclay’s work as an artist explores the intricacies that exist between sound and visual elements, often using spontaneous interactive musical arrangements and found objects to create a unique type of performance art. The exhibit, showing at the Whitney through Sept. 26, pays homage to Marclay’s creative vision with a collection of his pieces and daily performances of his works by noted musicians.

Many of the concepts work like a Dadaist exquisite corpse, linking seemingly unrelated components to form an entirely new and original score, such as “Prêt-a-Porter,” a piece in which models wear clothing adorned with musical notes and musicians play them. Another piece, “Box Set,” uses found boxes decorated with musical notes to create a score. The boxes are stacked inside one another like Russian dolls and the performer unstacks them, playing each note as he or she goes. These pieces come off as somewhat cutesy, but students with some knowledge of art history would recognize the element of chance as a possible nod towards Surrealists who used similar methods, like collaging words or found objects, to create art. Marclay’s work lifts the Surrealist reference to another level by adding sound to the collage, yet it seems that it is the concept on paper, rather than the experience of the piece, that is most entertaining.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is Marclay’s newest experiment, a giant chalkboard of musical staff lines. Visitors are encouraged to mark on the lines and musicians interpret and play the “score” periodically. Most of the marks are far from strictly musical, and people seem to enjoy drawing figures such as ducks, hearts, or clowns instead of notes. It’s easy to spot graffiti-like chalkboard writings such as “Rachel was here!” or “California is better!” alongside “poop” written repeatedly. It is unclear if these were quite the interactions with the piece that Marclay had intended, but they certainly provide a challenge of creativity for the musicians.

Arguably the most compelling part of the exhibit is the performance of “Screen Play.” This piece has more potential to engage the viewers intellectually and absorb them in a unique unstructured experience in a way that some of the other pieces cannot. “Screen Play” consists of found black and white film footage overlaid with colored animated lines and dots —abstract forms yet vaguely reminiscent of musical notation. This “score” is meant to be interpreted by a small ensemble. The musicians use accordions, trumpets, and computer generated sound to provide the score, often incorporating daily objects and unorthodox methods to create unique sounds, such as blowing heavily through a trombone to make the sound of wheels. The result of the collaboration between moving image, colored lines, and ensemble music is mesmerizing.

It is striking how unrelated images on the screen, such as an image of a bowling ball cutting to a separate image of a woman picking up a ball then to a balloon flying into the air, could suddenly turn into a story using the music as the glue to unite it. The music is an atonal blend and never quite “matches’” the visuals, but somehow it provides an emotional force for the piece.

Since “Festival” is a live collage, nothing is repeated exactly the same way, and visitors to the exhibition never know what to expect in a performance. Prepare to go with an open mind and sample some of these unconventional artistic experiences.