Doors slam, close with a hush or with the quietest click. Filled with foley-artist creaks and squeals and dramatic snatches of moody soundtrack music, Christian Marclay’s 2022 work Doors is getting its first UK screening at White Cube Mason’s Yard in London. Comedy capers, film noir, snatches of old B-movies, bedroom farce, New Wave and costume dramas are all grist to Marclay’s editorial mill. Tough guys with guns stalk corridors and invade hotel rooms. Someone passes through the door of a swanky apartment and then they’re suddenly somebody else, down in the basement or locked in the slammer. Whenever someone passes through a door, we are cut and spliced into another clip from a different movie. The elevator isn’t to be trusted, and no closed door is safe. Doors is like one of those horror movies where you can never leave the building. I don’t recall seeing a window anywhere. Down in White Cube’s basement, we are lost in a labyrinthine, film-set world of mock-up interiors, and might never see daylight again.
As it’s projected as a continuous loop on a single screen, it doesn’t matter at which point you start watching Doors, or when you stop. Nor does Marclay give a running time to his montage of quickfire edits. Viewers might take note of a scene as a signpost – to know that they’ve seen the whole thing – but the artist lays traps for us along the way. Certain scenes repeat as we watch the work unfurl. Here comes that man again, stepping into an office to grab a package from a desk. “I forgot my money!” he yells to the guy behind the desk, before quickly stepping back out. Now that horrible, tattooed hand is pawing at the door again, and I think I recognise this garish wallpaper from earlier.
