Today at the New York Art Book Fair, The Thing Quarterly launches its 20th issue, a 24 Hour Wall Clock by Tauba Auerbach. Pick it up at the fair or order it from the website, here, for $120, or as part of the yearly subscription (the next three artists in the cycle are Ben Marcus, John Baldessari and David Korty). It's possibly my favorite project since the inaugural edition in 2007, the Miranda July window shade.
"I've always had a very fraught relationship with time. I was born two weeks late, and I’ve been late to pretty much everything since. I relate to time in a totally illogical, fantasy-based way, and when I really start to think about it, I'm not sure I believe it “actually” exists. Why is it asymmetrical, running only in one direction? Or does it? Could it be an artifact of another spatial dimension? Could it be a circle or a surface rather than a line?
For the last few years I've been trying to become friends with time. Trying to be punctual, trying to see time as an ally rather than a foe. In a conversation with my friend Xylor a few years ago, I learned that she always finds extra time in her day, which is quite different from my experience. Upon parting ways I asked her to help me become friends with time. She then sent me a post card with some tips. One of them was to buy clocks that I like and display them prominently. I took this advice, and have since acquired a collection of interesting time pieces. One of my favorite purchases is a clock that has a 24-hour movement. I've found this one particularly helpful because it forces me to stop and think for an extra second or two when I’m reading the time. The hand positions are not what I'm used to, and I can’t just glance at it and know what time it is. I have think, to interact with time anew and at a little bit of a distance when I look at this clock, not as a familiar, problematic relative that I engage with lazily. I wanted to spread this experience out and make it more my own by designing my own 24 hour clock."
- Tauba Auerbach
No comments:
Post a Comment