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. In the past years, he has exhibited his work all over and pioneered turntablism (the use of records and turntables as musical instruments).

From the moment that you step into the exhibit, all types of musical art surround you.  To your left, there is a room that is full of musical clothing, records, and even tissues.  The message seems to be that music is not just something that you listen to, you can also read it, and create it.  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.  Although it was only a single line of words, those sentences seemed to tie everything in the room together. Also on the walls were compound cartoon cut-outs.  These cartoons displayed onomatopoeia such as “Bang” and “Boom.”  But just seeing the sounds, in my opinion, is nothing compared to hearing them. In the room conjoined to this one, there is music playing.  The room is white with comfy couches and record displayed towards the back.  As soon as you sit down on the ostensibly comfortable couches, music starts to play. But not Top 40 music or even classical music.  The music being played is a mixture of screeching fiddles and other undesirable noises that are hard to put up with at times.

So instead of staying in this peculiar room, you exit into a large room with different sections.  In two of the sections, mini movies are being played, without sound.  These soundless movies really made me think about how we’d be affected if we didn’t have music or even sound.  Also in this room was a very big blackboard with many musical staffs.  On the blackboard, there were the writings of many different people saying things such as “There is always a strait of sun…somewhere” and “Today is my birthday!”   This part of the exhibit has a very distinctive style.  Instead of being told not to write on the very big musical staff on the wall, you are encouraged to do so.  In the far corner of the room stands a lonely piano daring somebody to go over and play it but warning them not to at the same time.  In this big room, even though music is not playing, it seems to be present nonetheless.

Soon, it is time for the short music show, Graffiti Composition.  In the late ‘90’s, thousands of blank sheet music were posted throughout Berlin.  Passerbies were encouraged to scribble on them with music, or whatever else they wanted to do.  The new, filled in sheet music were then photographed for musicians to use as inspiration, or music.

The concert starts and once again, the sounds heard are not pleasant.  It doesn’t seem as if anyone is enjoying them.  But in a strange way, this music is art.  What comes to mind when you hear a pitter-patter sound?  You may think of a toddler running across a wooden floor, or marbles falling on top of each other, or even water hitting the roof of a shed.  In this music show, every sound that I heard, I affiliated with a picture or memory in my mind.  Whether it was the wind chimes on the porch of my grandma’s house, or the sirens of the fire trucks that pass by my window every so often, or the static that I hear every time someone takes of the television every sound evoked an emotion and came together to create a twisted musical piece.

This style of exposition makes you feel as if you are a part of the art that is being displayed.  Christian Marclay illustrates the connection between sound, music, and art cleverly.  I left the Christian Marclay: Festival exhibit with a greater tolerance to strange sounds and an awareness of the noises around me.  The main message that I took away from this exhibit was: sounds are music in a sense, and music, without a doubt, is art.  So all we need to do is open our eyes and listen.

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Check out a mini-documentary on turntable sound pioneer Christian Marclay: