If you haven’t seen it yet, you have five more days to watch this really, really cool film before it closes on September 22nd at The Polygon Gallery.
I first saw artist Christian Marclay’s The Clock nearly ten years ago at the White Cube gallery in London, where it was first shown. It was clever. Brilliant. It blew my mind. After opening night, I went back several times to watch more of it, to catch the film at different points throughout the day (sometimes to see if it was still telling the time).
The work is comprised of thousands of clips from hundreds and hundreds of films, each clip referencing time—be it a scene of a watch or clock or through dialogue—to fill a 24-hour day, flowing in real time. So when a character wakes up to look at their clock that reads 8:14am, you can look down at your phone and it’ll say 8:14am.
It may have taken me a whole summer, but I finally went to see The Clock at The Polygon Gallery and the experience was as riveting as I remembered. I saw parts of the film I had never seen before, like from 8-9AM when the gallery hosted a 24-hour viewing of the film. The disparate clips spanning all kinds of cinema—black-and-white, colour, Hollywood, avant garde, rom-com, thriller— were still somehow cohesive. From 8-9AM, there were scenes of characters waking up, or having overslept, or coming home from a late night out. Lots of breakfast scenes. And anxious, running-late scenes. The clips flow seamlessly thanks also to Marclay’s treatment of sound: music or dialogue from one scene carries through and overlaps into the next (even across different languages).
This is a film you absolutely have to experience in person. You won’t see the whole thing, you’re not meant to, it’s 24-hours long! Stay for a half hour, an hour, or go back again and again. (Try to go at the top of the hour, like when the clock strikes 9AM or midnight, it is particularly exciting.)
The finale screening is September 22 from 10am until midnight. Don’t miss it, you might have to wait another nine years before your next chance!
ON UNTIL SEPT. 22 | GALLERY HOURS HERE | BY DONATION
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