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 symbols; various artists are invited to musically interpret these items.

On view at the Whitney Museum of American Art until September 26, Festival is on the mediocre side of the museum art spectrum. While Festival is initially engaging, it is easily dismissible–Marclay appears to rely solely on unconventionality for meaning rather than real substance.

The most prominent of Marclay’s visual pieces is Ephemera, an extensive display of wrappers, packaging, and adverts marked with staff lines and musical notes.  While the compilation is certainly amusing to look at, it is essentially as banal as a stamp or trading card collection.  The performance-based piece Graffiti Composition is an aural adaptation of graffiti marks on posters of staff lines (these posters were placed in Berlin for passersby to freely mark). As a different musician leads each performance, each interpretation is different than the last—visitors are encouraged to return to hear multiple renditions.  Though intriguing in theory, the piece is just an unsettling battle of wills between a guitar and a laptop.  On guitar, Mary Halverson strums random, disconnected chords after another, contending with Ikue Mori’s drum machine-style clips of shattering glass.  Following the shock value-style of Ephemera, Graffiti Composition is haphazard in execution—it lacks harmony and direction, and borders on unlistenable.