Time, please

Curated by Karin Borer and Daniel Kurth

The group exhibition Time, please circles around time-immanent themes and concepts such as non-linear narration, performance and re-enactment, action and reaction, acceleration and stasis. In various media, the participating artists engage with an altered perception of time that encompasses physical and social cycles, automation, repetition, and an engagement with nostalgic pasts.

What happens when time is released from the corset of timekeeping and scheduling? Then events no longer follow one another and effects no longer follow causes – clarity gives way to a game of possibilities. Gaps in the process arise when something intervenes in the in-between. We may not move forward, but back, up, down, nodding, to the left and to the right. We may be making rounds, forming loops, branching out into parallel worlds and labyrinthine memory spaces.

The spatial settings of artist Lucia Elena Průša (b. 1985, lives in Vienna) and artist Michael Ray-Von (b. 1988, lives in Basel) as well as the expansive video installation by artist Jiajia Zhang (b. 1981, lives in Zurich) are understood in this exhibition as individual components of a self-sustaining system. By entering the exhibition space, one enters an undefined cyclical organism or apparatus and becomes part of a non-linear sequence of events. 

The exhibition includes a cinematic screening room in which the film works of artist Steve Bishop (b. 1983, lives in London), artist Hannah Weinberger (b. 1988, lives in Basel) and artist Angharad Williams (b. 1984, lives in Wales and Berlin) are shown. The regular sequence of the films forms the rhythm of the exhibition. The cinematic arrangement runs in an endless loop throughout the duration of the exhibition, so that the room functions as a pacemaker – a "clock" – of the superordinate system. An acoustic signal is connected to the other exhibition rooms. With this signal, the starting point of the next film can be perceived acoustically at any location within the exhibition. A temporal pattern is created – similar to a metronome or a wall clock. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication with a text contribution by the Zurich-based artist Benedikt Bock (b. 1987, DE).