Museum #2: Video Quartet

I was ambling around on the fifth floor of the Tate Modern on Friday, looking at the cubist and pop section, when I came across a dark room entitled "Video Quartet" by Christian Marclay. I entered the room and found a most incredible piece--four screens next to each other, each with a different movie clip playing. The movie clips all had to do with music. I walked in to see four different pianos played by four different people, one of which was Holly Hunter in a scene from The Piano. I sat there entranced as each screen changed periodically to reveal cascades of violins, drums, singing, dance, even marching bands. The installation included scenes from some of my favorite movies and musicals--Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, Doris Day in The Pajama Game, James Stewart, Ann Miller, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and countless others. The sounds from the different screens blended together to create a delightful combination of sound as well as images. It was simply magical for me to watch it; I felt waves of memories and emotions welling up as the different movies came on the screen. I was surprised and impressed at the emotional response the piece elicited--- how a five second clip of a particular movie has the power to entrance and stir up the memories and feelings I associate with the film.
I then began thinking about how art gets tossed around. The man who made the piece used two different mediums, film and song, to created a symphony of sound and images that is entirely original. It is fascinating to me how a piece of art gets recycled, reused, or manipulated, to produce an entirely new work. Art feeds into itself, and artists feed off each other to develop this splendid world of connection and inspiration. Things get borrowed and stolen, but I think it is acceptable and productive when each time it spawns something new. This realization made me appreciate the intricate nature and complexities of art more; it also made me see that borrowing from another artist does not make one any less original, if the artist creates something fresh and new. After all, Shakespeare borrowed heavily from earlier works when writing his plays, and that fact does not make him any less of a great writer. I would love to go back someday and watch the splendid montage of some of my favorite movie moments played out for me in such an interesting way.