
It's a moment tick-tocking with anticipation for cinephiles and art lovers alike: "The Clock," Christian Marclay’s sprawling 24-hour video art piece, is once again ticking away at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Unlike traditional film experiences, viewers at MoMA won't just watch time pass by on screen; they'll experience it in sync with the real world. Marclay's work stitches together thousands of clips from film and television, each denoting the exact time of day or night at that moment. "when Bruce Willis grabs his father’s watch in a scene from “Pulp Fiction,” the time on that watch is the time on your own," as described by Gothamist.
In a rare move befitting the rare art piece it hosts, MoMA has agreed to fling its doors wide open for a special 24-hour viewing on December 21. The entire marathon screening event, which deviates from the museum's usual closing time, will allow visitors to immerse themselves in the full temporal cycle that "The Clock" encompasses. Reservations, as one can imagine, are necessary, and open to the public tomorrow at 11 a.m. A select number of seats have been reserved for museum members, who have the benefit of earlier access and priority admission.
The last time New Yorkers were privy to Marclay's homage to time, smartphones weren't the ubiquitous appendage they are today. Now, as the work reemerges in a world where time seems fragmented by digital interruptions, its meaning might be altered, or perhaps, heightened. “The kids who were maybe 10 years old when they saw 'The Clock' with their parents are now 20, and they’ve been using social media for a decade,” Marclay told the New York Times. “How are they going to relate to it? It’s hard for me to answer, but that fragmentation is something that people are now quite familiar with.”
To accommodate the non-linear engagement the piece intends, MoMA's presentation of "The Clock" replicates the casual viewing environment Marclay prefers. The sofas sprinkled throughout the exhibition space aren’t just for show; they reflect the creator's vision for a participatory audience experience, distinct from the conventional, synchronized routine of cinema-goers, as detailed by New York Times. "It's a different choreography: you make the choices," Marclay said of the setup. Patrons of MoMA, and of the art of film, can now weave in and out of the gallery, as time—a factor the piece underscores as both precious and mundane—marches relentlessly on.
Indeed, on the evening of December 21 as MoMA transitions into a temporal no-man's-land, visitors into the "Clock" gallery will step into a microcosm of human history measured in cinematic snippets. "The Clock" will not only serve as a testament to the hours and minutes we share but will remind us, as Stuart Comer, MoMA's chief curator of media and performance suggests, of our ever-evolving relationship with time itself. "Because this is literally a clock made of fragments from our cultural memory," Comer told New York Times, "it is bound to take twists and turns each time it’s shown, as time goes on."