Timekeeper



2017
Intervention in wall made with a Random Orbit Sander (BOSCH GEX 125 1-AE)

A hole in the wall reveals the successive layers of paint that remain after previous exhibitions. Proposed as the archeology of a display site, Timekeeper shows how  rings  represent the growth of a tree or the geological strata of the earth. Timekeeper was first performed in the Secession Hall in Vienna, the first art exhibition space thought of as a «white cube».
In this context, Timekeeper also evokes the largest open pit mine in the world, Chuquicamata, located in the northern part of Chile which is symbolically transferred to the National Museum of Fine Arts. It is compared as a human gesture in the middle of the Anthropocene, the geological period defining by the human capacity to transform the earth. Chuquicamata is a paradigm of planetary geographic transformation for economic purposes, a gigantic earth hole that will continue to exist thousands of years after human extinction.
Previously, Timekeeper has been made in:
Vienna, Austria, 1999 / Neugerriemschneider Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2000 / Gallery 4 North Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA, 2009 / Georges Pompidou Center, Paris, France, 2013 / Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 2014 / Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, 2014 / Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA 2015 / Palace of Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium, 2016 / Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2016 / Institute of Contemporary Art, Villeurbanne, France , 2016