Tempo : [brochure] Texts I, II, and V by Roxana Marcoci, III and IV by Miriam Basilio] Date 2002 Publisher The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition URL www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/154 The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history— from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists. MoMA © 2017 The Museum of Modern Art TempoJune29-September 9,2002 This exhibition Focuseson distinct perceptions of time—phenomenological, empirical,political, and Fictional—in the work oFcontemporaryartists FromAFrica, the Americas,Asia, and Europe.The show is organizedinto Fiveareas oFmulti mediainstallations that examinecultural diFFerencesin the constructionoFtime. In the First area, Time Collapsed,the systemic interfaces with the randomin a cacophonyoF clocks, watches, and metronomes.Transgressive Bodies, the second area,probes the metabolicprocesses and erotic drives exercisedby the body.The Louise Bourgeois. Untitled. 2002. Ink and pencil on ). physicalworld involvesa senseoF evolution, , butalso imnermanence[jcMiiaMciiLC OIIUand entrnnvCI II I up y , music paper J 1V(x g„ (29g x gg.g cm Collection the artist; courtesy Cheim and Read, New York LiquidTime explores this ever-changingFlow oF time through imagesoF water in a third section.Trans-Histories, the Fourth area, addressesissues oFpostcolonialism, thus engagingthe viewer's critical perceptionoF the present through memory. Althoughseemingly static, the video and sculptural pieces in the Fifth area, Mobility/ Immobility, are in constant motion, destabilizingthe viewers perceptionoFtime; aspects oF circularity, unendingduration, andtime arrested are experiencedin a this last section. time collapsed Thequest for freedomis frequently a alternative, morefluid and entrepreneurial, circuit the imageof standardtime. In this responseto the necessitiesof today's lifestyles designedto offer greater individ case,the plurality of times registered society, calledthe "risk society" by German ual freedomfrom canonicaltime structures. reflects the owner'sown needs.Each clock sociologist Ulrich Beck,in which social \r\A-ZTimeTrials of 1999,Andrea Zittel performsspecific tasks: onemeasures a institutions oncethought to insure our manipulatesthe constructof time, from pre wholeweek; another, three daysand a two- safety also exerciseexcessive power over determinationto free will, in an attempt to day weekend;yet another,three weeksand a our time. Ratherthan unequivocally distendthe scopeof deep-rootedbehavioral one-weekvacation. Similarly, Alighiero e conformingto traditional social norms, patterns. Fiveoctagonal clocks sport Boetti's Watchesof 1977-94comprises six contemporaryindividuals opt insteadfor customizednumerical systems that short- teen wristwatchesthat measuretime in ,s/ib3/b" Andrea Zittel. A-Z Time Trials (detail). 1999. Five clocks, wood and steel frames, clockworks, and electric motor, each 26 x 29 x 2 (66 x 76 x 6 cm). Collection Burton S. Minkoff, Miami; courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAiA4 4AU units oFconsecutive years rather than of that any standard is not the truest unit oF constructionoFtime. In FontesoF 1992, seconds.As in the anecdoteabout a person measure,but the most convenient.In other madeup oFFour clocks with misplacedas askingFor directions being pointed simulta words, a standardconstitutes a relative well as missingnumbers, Cildo Meireles neouslyto the right andto the leFt,Peter model,and is the result oFconventions that questionsthe logic oFFixed time-space Regli'spaired clocks in RealityHacking #147 may appearto be empiricalbut are in Fact coordinates.Something similar happensin oF1998 run in synch—oneForward and the suppositionsthat scientists treat as cate KlausRinke's installation Albert Einstein! other backward. gorical deFinitions. WhenDoes Baden-Baden Stop at ThisTrain? Althoughchallenging scientiFic postu Thenotion oFrelativity is essentialin oF1989-90. ConsistingoF a double-Faced lates, the guestionremains as to whether examiningexperiential diFFerences in the 1930srailway clockmounted on actualmetal suchexperiments oFFer a suFFicientmargin rails, the work and its nonsensicaltitle reFer oFFreedom From canonical time structures, to Einstein'sslip oFthe tonguewhen making sinceeventually they becomethe actual an inquiry during oneoF his trips. In Work groundFor new standards.This was pointed No. 18S.thirty-nine metronomesbeating out by the Frenchmathematician and physi cist HenriJules Poincare in his bookScience and Hypothesis(1902), where he explained t 1 Cildo Meireles. Fontes (detail). 1992. Four clocks, each s/i" 8 (22 cm) diam. Courtesy the artist, Rio de Janeiro Martin Creed. Work No. 189. thirty-nine metronomes beating time, one at every speed. 1988. 39 mechanical Malzel metronomes, each 9 x 4 7i x 47z" (23 x 11.5 x 11.5 cm). Private collection; courtesy Gavin Brown's enterprise, Corp., New York AAAAAAA44AA1kAAAA time, oneat every speedoF 1998, Martin hammers.Vilmouth presentsa diagram delaying,and controlling the consumer's [reed exploresthe relation oFsystemic and oFtime and labor basedon increasedpro senseoFFulFillment and expectation,or randomtemporalities. The artist hascraFted ductivity as against idle, empty time that conversely,by anticipating, rushing,and an arrangementoF thirty-nine mechanical needsto be "killed." As the Frenchsociolo taking the consumerby surprise.Thus, wind-up metronomes,each adjusted to play gist Pierre Bourdieuhas shown,the link within the system oFlabor, temporal power at oneoF the metronome'sthirty-nine speeds, betweentime and power is evincedby the can be seento measureindividual aspira and eachunwinding at a distinct time. Music capitalist tactics oFadjourning, deFerring, tions and expectations. is thus impliedthrough rhythm, beat, swing, Jean-Luc Vilmouth. Local Time (detail). 1987-89. 100 wall clocks and 100 hammers, each clock: 25" (53.5 cm) diam.; each hammer: lEVix SVlx l'/is" (31.5x 14 x 3 cm). Collection Caisse des depots et consignations, Mission Mecenat; on a certainto andFro, and pause. Yet, at the same deposit at Musee d'art moderne, Saint-Etienne time, the metronomes'concerted cacophony collapsesthe devices'structuring order. Jean-LucVilmouth's tongue-in-cheek motiFoF one hundredpairs oFclocks and * 12/ ' hammersin his mural-scaleinstallation LocalTime oF 1987-89 addresses the poli tics oFtime.This piecealludes on the one handto the Utopianagenda oF revolution ary Soviet society, with its Five-year plans, and on the other to capitalism'searly modernmachines and large-scalemass production.Both systems demonstratethe notion oFmechanistic eFFiciency, aligning art with progress.SigniFicantly, the French word augmenter,meaning "to increase," is printed in red on eachoFthe one hundred transgressive bodies Erwin Wurm. One Minute Sculpture. 1997. C-print, 17"/ibx 11 "At" (45 x 30 cm). Courtesy the artist and Art : Concept, Paris of unconsciousdrives, DouglasGordon addressesthe succinctand abrupt interval betweenliving and dying. His installation 30 SecondsText oF 1996 consists oFa dark enedroom Furnishedon one wall with an accountoF an experimentperFormed in 1905by a Frenchdoctor, who attemptedto communicatewith the severedhead oF a guillotined criminal, and a lightbulb set on a timer that goeson and oFFevery thirty seconds.The experiment,which soughtto FindprooF oF consciousness aFter death, Thetemporal ideasoF clock makers and artist sitting nakedin an empty room, sur empiricalscientists are Cartesiancon roundedby oranges,limes, and croissants. structs that measurereality into exact Shegazes at the camera,opens her mouth, units. Oneway to circumventthis view is to and the lens zoomsin. An instant later, the rethink the agencyoF the body by consider imagezooms out Fromher dilating rectum. ing the antinomiesbetween strict biologi This playFulback-and-Forth passage From cal time and the body'slibidinal experience mouthto anus is intendedto mark erotic oFduration. Pipilotti Rist capturesthe pursuits as well as the metabolicdesire to undertowoFbodily drives in her video consumeand expel. installation Mutaflor oF1996. Projected While Rist'svideo installations exudea Pipilotti Rist. Still from Mutaflor. 19S6.Video installa tion, dimensions variable. Courtesy Luhring Augustine, 6 directly onto the Floor,the imageshows the Fascinationwith the unboundcyclical time New York, and Galerie Hauser &Wirth, Zurich Damien Hirst. Liar. 1989. Drug packaging and cabinet, 94 x 4Dx 9" [137x 10Zx 22 cm). Courtesy The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut >- "-= Matthew Barney. Pace Car for the Hubris Pill. 1991. Internally lubricated plastic, Teflon fabric, cast glucose capsule, and cast sucrose wedge, 53'A" x B'4Vz"x 48" (135.2x 194.3x 121.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired from Werner and Elaine Dannheisser whichunorthodox action and the structureof time form the work.Also probing behavioral patternsin Westernconsumerist society, specifically,the desirefor immortality, DamienHirst's drug cabinets include stimu lants,sedatives, antidepressants, and vita lasted betweentwenty-five and thirty sec minsthat canalter, save, or prolonglife and that canstretch physical limits. onds. Connectingthe sensationof the V - , beheadedbody of the criminal to the sen MatthewBarney shares with Hirst the sation of the reader of the text, Gordon desireto escapefrom any form of temporal, equatesthe interval betweenlife and death spatial, social, behavioral,or sexualcon with the time it takes a