Merce by Merce by Paik Part Two: Merce and Marcel

Nam June Paik and Shigeko Kubota
1978, 13:05 min, color, sound

In Merce and Marcel, Paik and Shigeko Kubota create a densely textured, transcultural collage that pays tribute to the eponymous artists by addressing the relationship of art and life. Paik and Kubota link art to the movements and gestures of the everyday: "Is this dance?" reads the text over an aerial view of taxis moving through the streets of New York, and the image of a baby's tottering first steps. A rare interview with Duchamp by Russell Connor is re-edited by Paik in a rapid, stutter-step progression. In a witty temporal layering that Paik terms a "dance of time," an interview with Cunningham, also by Connor, is intercut and superimposed with the earlier interview of Duchamp: "Time reversible — Time irreversible."

By Shigeko Kubota and Nam June Paik.

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1978, 28:45 min, color, sound