DJ Marclay mixes audio, visual in Hammer exhibit
Christian Marclay went to art school to learn how to be a
sculptor. However, he left the Massachusetts College of Art in 1980
as one of the early pioneers of turntablism.
“Art school only offered classes on painting and
sculpting, but I was interested in live art or performance
art,” Marclay said. “There’s no reason for
separating music and art. I try to connect audio with
visual.”
Both Marclay’s audio and visual art have been on display
in a career-spanning exhibition this summer at the Hammer Museum.
In the latest of a series of concerts, Marclay will join Tom
Recchion, a leading member of the Los Angeles experimental music
scene, and New York underground DJ Toshio Kajiwara in djTrio on
Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
“The main principle of djTrio is to present DJs in a group
context ““ as members in a band rather than solo
artists,” Marclay said. “To react and improvise to
sounds created by other people is a great challenge.”
With no background in any musical instruments, Marclay turned to
the turntable and made it an acceptable performance medium.
However, his music has never been about beats or putting party
people on the dance floor like hip-hop does. Akin to artwork,
Marclay’s recordings demonstrate a focus on collages. The
avant-garde DJ blends incongruent sounds together similar to the
way he sowed tapes of Beatles works into a pillow in 1989’s
“The Beatles.”
It should not come as a surprise that hip-hop or electronica DJs
are finding a niche in visual art institutions like the Hammer.
Since the 1960s, more experimental electronic artists, including
John Cage and Philip Glass, have found art houses to be the best
venue to showcase their works, which incorporate both sounds and
visuals that wouldn’t quite fit in a more traditional concert
setting.
In fact, early electronic music first sprouted up in visual art
institutions like Valencia’s California Institute of the Arts
and has been fed with the creativity of art departments like those
at UCLA and USC.
“Places like CalArts made for these free-flowing,
super-creative environments,” said Recchion. “There was
a lot of cross-pollination between musicians and artists that has
been key in experimental and electronic music.”
Recchion epitomizes this cross-pollination. Though his passion
is experimental electronic music, he began at CalArts as a painter
and found great success as a graphic artist, designing album covers
for acts like REM and Captain Beefheart.
But while the importance of visuals in electronic music is
partly imbedded in the style’s experimental roots, part of it
also comes from the DJ’s need to entertain.
While rock bands or rappers can move around the stage to get the
crowd going, the DJ is stuck behind his equipment, which makes
eye-catching visuals a crucial tool for performers.
“It’s not that interesting watching a guy load up
samples on his laptop,” said DJ Destiny, who runs a DJ
entertainment group and teaches turntablism at UC Davis.
“You’re not gonna be like, “˜Oh, he just
double-clicked there!.'”
