Christian Marclay—The Clock

Dec 21, 2012–Jan 21, 2013

MoMA

Christian Marclay. Video still from The Clock. 2010. Single-channel video with sound, 24 hours. © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
  • MoMA, Floor 2, Contemporary Galleries Contemporary Galleries

Note: This page corresponds to the 2012–13 installation of The Clock. Get details about the 2024–25 presentation

Winner of the Golden Lion award at the 2011 Venice Biennale, Christian Marclay’s The Clock is a cinematic tour de force that unfolds on the screen in real time through thousands of film excerpts that form a 24-hour montage. Appropriated from the last 100 years of cinema’s rich history, the film clips chronicle the hours and minutes of the 24-hour period, often by displaying a watch or clock. The Clock incorporates scenes of everything from car chases and board rooms to emergency wards, bank heists, trysts, and high-noon shootouts.

Christian Marclay—The Clock is on view in the Museum’s Contemporary Galleries during regular hours throughout its run, and is free with Museum admission. Admission to the installation is on a first-come, first-served basis, with no time limits for viewers. Demand for The Clock is expected to be high; please expect significant wait times.

24-Hour Screenings

On December 31, 2012, MoMA presents a special New Year’s Eve showing of The Clock in its entirety, which is the first opportunity for the public to view all 24 hours of the piece at MoMA. The Clock will go on view at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, December 31, and will run continuously until 5:30 p.m. on January 1, 2013. In conjunction with this showing, the Museum’s Cafe 2 restaurant offers a special menu of wines, cheeses, salumi, and desserts on New Year’s Eve from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., along with an all-night espresso bar.

Continuous screenings:

  • Friday, January 4, 2013, 10:30 a.m.–Sunday, January 6, 5:30 p.m.
  • Friday, January 11, 2013, 10:30 a.m.–Sunday, January 13, 5:30 p.m.
  • Friday, January 18, 2013, 10:30 a.m.–Sunday, January 20, 5:30 p.m.
       
    During after-hours showings, the Museum’s Contemporary Galleries will remain open. Philip Worthington’s Shadow Monsters will also remain on view until its closing on January 1, 2013.

Updates

Beginning December 21, 2012, the Museum will provide updates on visiting The Clock, including live reports on the queue, via Twitter (@TheClockatMoMA). Tweet about The Clock using the hashtag #TheClockatMoMA.

The Clock includes an induction hearing loop for sound amplification. Visitors may turn their hearing aid or cochlear implant to T-coil mode or borrow a headset and receiver from an attendant at the entrance to the gallery. This is the first MoMA exhibition to include such a hearing loop. In addition, all MoMA theaters, lobby desks, ticketing desks, audioguide desks, and one of The Edward John Noble Education Center’s classrooms are also equipped with hearing loops that transmit directly to hearing aids with T-coils.

Organized by Sabine Breitwieser, Chief Curator, with Martin Hartung, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art. The Clock was acquired by MoMA in 2011 as a promised gift from the collection of Jill and Peter Kraus.

Major support for the exhibition is provided by Maja Oeri and Hans Bodenmann.

Additional funding is provided by The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art and by Marlene Nathan Meyerson.

Publication

  • Press release 3 pages

Artist

Installation images

How we identified these works

In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

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