Christian Marclay

Christian Marclay is known for using a range of media--video, sculpture, installation and performance--in his artwork to address the ways that music and sound impact our experience of the world. While he frequently uses photograms and found images in his work, most people don't realize the extent to which photography has become a tool of choice for this subtle but influential artist. For this project, a limited-edition boxed card set, Shuffle, Marclay photographed the appearance of musical notation in his everyday wanderings--finding examples on shop awnings, chocolate tins, T-shirts, underwear and other unexpected places. This body of work reveals Marclay to be an obsessive photographic note-taker with a flair for uncovering musical "clues" hidden in the landscape and adorning our world--musical notes just waiting to be called into action. Each of the 75 images collected here is presented on an oversized playing card, and the entire deck is enclosed in a distinctive package. Part Fluxus box, part John Cage-ian "chance operation" or Eames House of Cards, this highly collectible edition offers a compelling, serendipity-driven visual experience, as well as the components for a spontaneous musical score: a player need only shuffle the deck and let the cards fall where they may in order to produce a unique, experimental sequence. With text and instructions by Marclay.