Christian Marclay | Music Box

Christian Marclay

Untitled (Music Box)

Santa Monica, USA: Peter Norton Family Foundation, 2005

13 x 9.5 x 7 cm.

Edition size unknown

You can imagine the excitement when Christian Marclay realized that Silent was an anagram of Listen, and then Tinsel, too, making it perfect for a Christmas music box. 

The work consists of a hinged-lid pine wooden music box accompanied by a card that reads: "Each year, Peter Norton commissions a work of art to celebrate the holiday season. This year's edition is by Christian Marclay... For this project, Marclay has composed 'Tinsel' - a seamless melodic loop without beginning or end that incorporates the gradual slowing of the unwinding mechanism - To play with our expectations of the music box..."

The word SILENT is engraved on the exterior and LISTEN on the interior, a possible nod to Ken Friedman's Fluxus box Open and Shut Case which Marclay would have known well. 

The work was manfucatred by Reuge, a renowned Swiss “Maison” specializing in luxury music boxes and singing bird automata that was founded by Charles Reuge in 1865. In 2005, they were the last remaining music box manufacturers in Switzerland. 

Other multiples and artists’ books in the Peter Norton Christmas series include a porcelain ashtray, a lapel pin, a printed fan, a music box, a CD, a woven blanket, a lifesaver, a dollhouse, trophies, cards, a cup & saucer, a slide viewer, salt & pepper shakers as snow globes,  pop up books by Peter Coffin and Kara Walker, etc., etc.  Participating artists include Robert Lazzarini, Do Ho Suh, Ry Rocklen, Takashi Murakami, Anna Gaskell, Yinka Shonibare, Sanford Biggers, Yasumasa Morimura, Christian Marclay, Vik Muniz, Sanford Biggers, Nina Katchadourian, Marc Swanson, Jim Hodges, Kevin Sommers, Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt, Benjamin Lord, Richard Kostelanetz, Lorna Simpson, Lawrence Weiner, and many others.

 

Kara Walker | Freedom, a Fable

Kara Walker

Freedom, a Fable

Santa Monica, USA: Peter Norton Family Christmas Project, 1997

23 x 21 x 3 cm.

Edition of 4000

Subtitled A curious interpretation of the wit of a Negress in troubled times, with illustrations, this bookwork combines Walker's delicate silhouettes with the medium of the children's pop-up book. The book follows the story of a young black woman named N— who was emancipated after the Civil War. She dreams of going “back to Africa” but instead finds herself on a ship with other "contraband of war", and passengers who weigh throwing her overboard or keeping her in case of starvation.

"Each year since 1988, rather than sending out a holiday card, Mr. Norton has commissioned an artist to create an edition -- usually the sculptural objects or books known as "multiples." These are produced in quantities from 2,500 to 5,000 unnumbered copies, according to Kris Kuramitsu, the curator of the Peter Norton and Eileen Harris Norton Collections, who oversees the project. Once finished, the pieces are packed by a fulfillment house near the Norton-family office in Santa Monica, Calif., and shipped out around the world a few weeks before Christmas.

Though such large runs might imply that the gifts are only glorified trinkets, they are anything but; most are made by a celebrated artist who is already represented in Mr. Norton's own collection.

The general idea, Ms. Kuramitsu said, is "to make contemporary art accessible and understandable, through an actual object that people can live with."

As the best multiples tend to do, each Norton project typically provides a smart twist on the artist's previous work. One example is the 1997 Christmas gift by Kara Walker, known for her flat wall installations of cut-paper silhouettes in black that pinpoint the nuances of the antebellum South. Her Norton project was a pop-up book called Freedom: A Fable which illuminates the dreams of "a soon-to-be-emancipated 19th-century Negress" using 3-D cut-paper constructions."

- Carol Kino, New York Times, 2005

Norton Family Christmas Greetings

Peter Norton is a programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist, best known for creating Norton AntiVirus, the once-ubiquitous anti-virus and anti-malware software. 

In 1989, Norton and his wife Eileen founded the Peter Norton Family Foundation, which provides financial support to visual and contemporary non-profit arts organizations, as well as human social services organizations. He serves on the board of MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Whitney. 

The Nortons accumulated one of the largest modern contemporary art collections in the United States. ARTnews magazine regularly lists Norton among the world's top two-hundred collectors.

Twenty-five years ago, the Norton Family Christmas Project began commissioning artists to create original, multiple-edition works that were mailed as holiday greetings to friends, colleagues, and selected institutions.  

"My wife and I are active in the world of contemporary art, and some time ago we became embarrassed at the idea of sending out traditional commercial cards at Christmastime when we had so many artists as friends,” he told Gregory Taylor. "So we began commissioning original Christmas greetings, which we send out to our closest friends and colleagues.”

The multiples and artists’ books in the series vary wildly: a porcelain ashtray, a lapel pin, a printed fan, a music box, a CD, a woven blanket, a lifesaver, a dollhouse, trophies, cards, a cup & saucer, a slide viewer, salt & pepper shakers as snow globes,  pop up books by Peter Coffin and Kara Walker, etc., etc.  

Participating artists include Robert Lazzarini, Do Ho Suh, Ry Rocklen, Takashi Murakami, Anna Gaskell, Yinka Shonibare, Sanford Biggers, Yasumasa Morimura, Christian Marclay, Vik Muniz, Sanford Biggers, Nina Katchadourian, Marc Swanson, Jim Hodges, Kevin Sommers, Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt, Benjamin Lord, Richard Kostelanetz, Lorna Simpson, Lawrence Weiner, and many others.