WATCHING THE CLOCK

way to go, wexner. no sooner is leibovitz gone (and almost forgotten) than they've put up something else with a special draw. and it isn't the more american photographs exhibition. that's what those are, to be sure, and we walked through them because he'd never seen the gallery and because everything's free to everyone on the first sunday of every month. you might as well. but no, we had gone specifically to watch the clock. and no, it's not like leibovitz or warhol. it isn't a first or an only. or at least not in any way big (its installation at the wexner center is, to be fair, its midwest debut). but christian marclay's twenty-four hour timepiece marathon of timepieces is definitely the stuff of legend -- and watching it on sunday while the rest of the city got ready to watch the super bowl meant that it was not only free but also blissfully accommodating. we had the afternoon -- and we had the front and center sofa -- so we sat down and watched. "the clock" is twenty-four hours long, and, to be fair, i should say that we only watched it for an hour and a half. (the front and center sofa affords a great viewing experience, but it does nothing for the neck.) still, even only watching it from one-thirty to three p.m. was enough to get a good sense of what it means to watch it. "the clock" is twenty-four hours long, and it's assembled from thousands of film clips "that are rationalized as kindred in that each of them contains within it a reference to a precise minute over the span of a day's twenty-four hours"* (and that precise minute is synched with the minute in which you're watching "the clock"). not only that, they're also organized by the progress of other visual themes, not to mention that some movies and television shows will recur as time has progressed (provided that time is of their essence). i'm not sure how some of the gallery goers on sunday were able to stay for only a few minutes. (maybe they were there to see the photographs.) it's not hard to appreciate how much research and planning it must have required to produce the work -- and we're given the metrics of time and assistants by the notes given by the gallery. but i also found it entertaining. it is, of course, clever, but it can also be funny or brooding, not to mention that its never ending span of twenty-four hours is also a mashup history of film and video. it plays, so to speak, with time. but for as much as it collects, it also keeps discarding and moving on. "the clock" is playful, but it's also daunting. before you can even think to find something to write on to record the time, the scene you didn't recognize but would have liked to remember is gone, and "the clock" marches on. then there's the other issue of time: "its duration qualifies it as an effectively 'impossible' task for a viewer to experience completely, i.e., to remain sensible and alert in its presence for its full rotation."* thankfully, the wexner center has lowered the threshold of impossibility for anyone who wants to watch as much of "the clock" as they can (even if they can't do it in succession). the gallery is scheduled to stay open all night for each of three more nights before the exhibition closes in april so that anyone who's interested can watch the hours of "the clock" that are impossible to see while the gallery is closed. plus, during those evening, nighttime and morning hours, the gallery reception desk won't be open to collect any entrance fees. there's also at least one more first sunday, not to mention that entrance to the gallery is free every thursday after four in the afternoon. it might not be an entire twenty-four, but that's more than enough incentive and opportunity for me to give "the clock" a few more hours of my own. plus, when you're inside you might have an overwhelming sense of being stuck in it, but you never have to check the time.

*bill horrigan, curator at large for the wexner center