Skip to main content
Telephones
Telephones
© Christian Marclay. Still courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

Telephones

Artist (Born in San Rafael, CA, 1955)
Date1995
MediumVideo (color, sound)
Dimensions7:30 minutes
ClassificationsVideo
Credit LineGift of Christian Marclay and Paula Cooper
Object number2009.7.1
Collections
  • ART OF THE UNITED STATES
  • MODERN & CONTEMPORARY
Edition250
Label TextTelephones is a precursor to the multi-projection Video Quartet (2002), which was shown at the Nasher Museum in the summer of 2009. Much like Video Quartet, this work is a sampling of scenes from popular movies in which repeated actions are combined to form a seamless ensemble. Using unaltered film segments as readymade material, Marclay sampled over 130 Hollywood movies, weaving together snippets of people answering telephones: from Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder and Psycho, to contemporary films like Clerks and Sleepless in Seattle.