Christian Marclay and The Vinyl Factory

Photo: Ben Westoby. Courtesy White Cube
Photo: Ben Westoby. Courtesy White Cube

Do vast spaces bring forth big art, or does big art call for vast spaces? I ask because the current production at the South London outpost of White Cube is a monster of wholesale appropriation.

Artist Christian Marclay occupies all five galleries and includes a performance space, a screen-printing operation by Coriander Studios, along with the mobile vinyl press named and pictured.

These are not found objects, so much as found means of production. In fact it’s a found production line, with records pressed into unique sleeves available for a very egalitarian £25 each.

David Toop performed on the day criticismism visited. It was standing room only. Sight lines were at a premium. I can only imagine it was even busier for Thurston Moore and John Butcher.

But production was already underway to immortalise an earlier performance by Laurent Estoppey. As the first of 500 slabs of contemporary art acetate were racked up for sale. They were busy.

And never mind, that Marclay could have pressed up CDs or offered downloads. The Vinyl Factory has in recent years done a good trade in limited edition records for artists and artistes alike.

As a result, with all the engineering, and mixing, and ink on public display, the show at White Cube had the feeling of a utopian blueprint, or at least a utopian blue-chip space.

There was more to the show than this circular groove. Elsewhere were bold paintings and prints of the onomatopoeic sounds made by, among other things, gestural movements with paint.

These splatterings are not under discussion here. Nor is the collection of empty pint glasses, nor the drunk-looking sheet music framed behind bullseye glass. These were ‘just’ the works for sale.

Instead, non-collectors can leave this show with the music industry demystified. For a moment in time, we can all imagine how foolish we were to spend all those years pandering to The Man.

Very much by the by, Sir Nicholas Serota was spotted in Bermondsey at the opening weekend. But of course the art industry, no matter who buys or sponsors, is still squeaky clean.

Christian Marclay is at White Cube Bermondsey until 12 April 2015. More about The Vinyl Factory can be found here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *