Alex Traub

Alex Traub is an obituaries reporter at the New York Times. He is also writing a book about Robert Silvers, the longtime editor of the New York Review of Books.

I have a particular interest in sudden manifestations of the invisible. This is how I make my living. As a New York Times obituarist, I am a professional announcer of death. That’s why I was struck, while watching Christian Marclay’s twenty-four hour collage of film and television clips, The Clock, by a scene of sound breaking glass.

Christian Marclay, The Clock (detail), 2010. Single-channel video with sound, 24 hours. © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

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