The most extensive monograph to date of Christian Marclay, spanning decades of work in photography, video, performance, and sound expression.
Christian Marclay – Cities follows the artist’s wanderings, transforming urban fragments into a visual and sonic score. Featuring texts by Sérgio Mah and Olivia Laing, plus a conversation with Ben Luke, the book uncovers the rhythms and poetry embedded in everyday city life and amplifies Marclay’s artistic practice at the intersection between visual arts, popular culture, and contemporary sound expression.
Beautifully designed by Laurent Brenner, this richly illustrated volume offers critical insights into Christian Marclay’s creative process and reveals his distinctive way of confronting artistic hierarchies, often juxtaposing elements of high and low culture. The book features a selection of works spanning almost fifty years of work, together with the artist’s thoughts on sound, chance, and the poetics of contemporary urban culture. The city, the street, and everyday life are transformed into spaces charged with visual and sonic signals.
236 pages | 1,719 color plates | 8.58 x 11.42 | © 2026
Table of Contents
Sergio Mah
Look
All Together
Christmas Trees
Pub Crawl
Chewing Gum
Lids and Straws
Bottle Caps
Unspoken Language
Olivia Laing
Cigarettes
Straws
Cotton Buds
Sound Holes
Snapshots
Christian Marclay interviewed by
Ben Luke
Borderlines
Graffiti Composition
Ephemera
Shuffle
Zoom Zoom
Call and Response
Found in
End matter