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Whitney Museum of American Art

This August, five groups of Teen Reviewers and Critics (TRaC) ventured out into New York City to take in some culture.  After attending a Thursday performance, everyone wrote reviews, then reconvened the following Tuesday for a discussion and workshop.  Our work is published here in the first of a five part series featuring writing from the Summer TRaC!

Summer TRaC Session 1 visited an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art featuring turntable pioneer Christian Marclay.  Check out the excerpts and full reviews below….

Christian Marclay’s “Festival” at the Whitney Museum of Art is an experiment of the ‘fusion of image and sound through collage, performance, installation, photography, sculpture, and video.’ In other terms, it is a smorgasbord of all things musical.” – Elizabeth Sherwood

Read ELIZABETHS’s full review.

“Along the walls, you see a single line of words, seemingly describing what you had just heard in the show, or were about to hear. […] those sentences tied everything in the room together.” – Kayla Somar

Read KAYLA’s full review.

“Viewers are encouraged to write something on the massive chalkboard that is covered in staff lines […] I learned that ‘Teresa ♥’s Julian,’ ‘Emma wuz here,’ […], and what was perhaps my favorite: a regretful sentiment somebody wrote about how they wish that they had taken piano lessons.” – Jane Handorff

Read JANE’s full review.

“Interactive art is what this is, most museums won’t let any one touch a thing but yet now we can draw on the wall.” – Kayla Vialva

Read KAYLA’s full review.

“[…] intriguing in theory, the piece is just an unsettling battle of wills […] On guitar, Mary Halverson strums random, disconnected chords after another, contending with Ikue Mori’s drum machine-style clips of shattering glass.” – Sharon Mizrahi

Read SHARON’s full review.

“At some points the speakers oozed out the sound of soothing rain, another reminder of the weather the sheet music was exposed to.  Accompanying the speakers was a guitar occasionally playing familiar tunes or chords and at other times seemingly haphazard notes.” – Kirsten Rischert

Read KIRSTEN’s full review.

“The dissonant tunes and complexed rhythms of this performance bring the most skilled listeners back to some other performances, such as Georges Asperghis’s latest production: Les Boulingrins.” – Victoire Bourhis

Read VICTOIRE’s full review.

“[…] certain combinations of sound and rhythm have the power to evoke such extreme responses in people. Music is at once less and more than physical. It is nourishing, like food, and yet invisible, like gas. Is music a fart?” – Phoebe Nir

Read PHOEBE’s full review.

“[…] sounds may include high shrills, popcorn sizzling, cork popping, water dripping, sawing, glass breaking, and everyday sounds of annoyance.” – Chui Yu Lau

Read CHUI YU’s full review.

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While I sat in the performance room of Christian Marclay‘s musical exhibit at the Whitney Museum and listened to his music being played, I thought I heard dripping water, a train, a UFO, trees rustling, and multiple cicadas.  Though I’m sure that others interpreted the music differently, it evoked many clear images in my head.  Despite the fact that I found the music to be even annoying at times, the performance really showed the relationship between what was heard and what was seen. [click to continue…]

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Music and noise are different things.  The Christian Marclay exhibit at the Whitney Museum explored that.  The sounds of ear piercing screeches and dripping water were both heard throughout the room.  Walking in and hearing the sounds of something unfamiliar as someone who dropping a glass becomes familiar.  This whole exhibit was about seeing sounds and interactive art.  A wall with music staffs that could be drawn upon in any which way one feels like.  Interactive art is what this is, most museums won’t let any one touch a thing but yet now we can draw on the wall. [click to continue…]

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You walk into the Whitney Museum of American Art, expecting to see just another art exhibition of an artist. You make your way to the elevator and start going up, not even thinking about what you’re about to see.  You step out of the elevator onto the second floor, and are thrust into the musical art world of Christian Marclay.  Christian Marclay’s art is highly unconventional and unique. [click to continue…]

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The Christian Marclay: Festival exhibit currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art is a multimedia performance of the artist’s “graphic scores” through sounds and images, but in fact, it seems more like a session of marriage counseling between two of the most uneasy partners in human history: music, and the mundane, insane, or just downright silly ways that humans try to codify it.

Truly, nowhere else does there exist such a bizarre disconnect between form and function. [click to continue…]

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Christian Marclay: Festival

by Elizabeth Sherwood August 5, 2010 Music

Christian Marclay ‘s “Festival” at the Whitney Museum of Art is an experiment of the “fusion of image and sound through collage, performance, installation, photography, sculpture, and video.”  In other terms, it is a smorgasbord of all things musical. In the first room, there are many objects related to music or with musical notes printed [...]

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Christian Marclay: Festival

by Sharon Mizrahi August 5, 2010 Music

Following the footsteps of many modern works, Christian Marclay’s Festival is more of a novelty than actual art.  Festival, described by Marclay as a “fusion of image and sound,” is a dual showcase of visual and performance art.  The visual aspect of the exhibit features clothing, wrappers, record sleeves, and print media adorned with musical [...]

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Interactive Art: Finally a Festival We Can All Be a Part of

by Kirsten Rischert August 5, 2010 Music

Procuring a “Festival” at the Whitney Museum of American Art is only a small feat for renowned artist and composer, Christian Marclay.  In the past thirty years he has exhibited his art worldwide, pioneered turntablism (the use of records and turntables as musical instruments), and worked with film, photography, sculpture, performance and video to brilliantly [...]

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Christian Marclay: Festival

by Chui Yu Lau August 5, 2010 Music

When going to see the “Graffiti Composition” by Christian Marclay at the Whitney Museum, his piece stood out as odd and unusual.  In this particular piece, which does not in fact contain any graffiti or visual, he uses unconventional sounds in his piece with a guitar.  “Unconventional” sounds may include high shrills, popcorn sizzling, cork [...]

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The Sounds & The Music

by Victoire Bourhis August 5, 2010 Music

When the experimental artwork meets the musical sense, it puts into question the visitors’ fundamental notions of music.  It is time to pass the front door of the Whitney Museum, an impressive modern granite building, to explore one of the world’s major collections of the 20th-century American art.  This summer, the museum chooses to feature [...]

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There’s No Place Like Home (in American Art)

by Dalia Wolfson June 14, 2010 Visual Arts

Imagine Jasper Johns’ “Map,” that spillage of rectangles arranged haphazardly into the USA, red state leaking to blue state, bound only by the lines of stenciled yellow letters.  That, roughly, remains the state of American Art (in capitals) – undefined, multicolored and searching for some form of definition. At this year’s Whitney Biennial (which closed [...]

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