Guitar Drag

On 18 November 1999, Christian Marclay made Guitar Drag, a 14′ film that documents a performance he carried out in San Antonio in the Texas desert, featuring a guitar dragged at the end of a rope by a pickup truck equipped with a powerful amplifier placed in the back of the vehicle.

“Guitar Drag has many different layers of references: it alludes to the ritual of smashing guitars at rock concerts, it recalls Fluxus and its many destructions of instruments. It is also a road movie, referring to the landscape of Texas where it was filmed, with references to cowboys and rodeos. It is about violence in general and more specifically about the lynching of James Byrd Jr., who was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck. I want the video to have these multiple layers and to trigger people’s imagination in contradictory directions. The piece ends up being both seductive and repulsive.”

* “Guitar Drag has many different layers of references, it alludes to the ritual of smashing guitars in rock concerts, it recalls Fluxus and its many destruction of instruments. It is also a road movie, with reference to the landscape of Texas where it was filmed, with references to cowboys and rodeos. It is about violence in general and more specifically about the lynching of James Byrd Jr. who was dragged to his death behind a pickup-truck. I want the video to have these multiple layers and trigger people’s imagination in contradictory ways. The piece ends up being seductive and repulsive at the same time”.

Christian Marclay, 2001, booklet of the vinyl edition by the Swedish label Neon Records in 1,500 copies published in 2006.