This exhibition requires patience. Not only because the work of art around which it was built only opened in 2496. But because time is at stake here. And when art is about time, it rarely means speed. Rather, there is an unspoken agreement among all cultural workers who deal with the fourth dimension, that some statement must come out against the felt rush, speed and impatience of our present. Time in art is usually the slightly didactic aim of the artists to put the viewer in a state in which they feel freed from despicable purposes, nervous envy and cravings, which, after enjoying them, immediately give rise to a tormenting feeling of arouse dissatisfaction.
“Futura”, the exhibition in the contemporary gallery of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, which is dedicated to the “measuring of time”, tries in most of its exhibits to let the visitor come to rest in the Buddhist sense. Co-curated by Bogomir Ecker, this concept show was developed on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his “stalactite machine”.
In the early 1980s, Ecker and his friend Sigurd K. Meeske, a mechanical engineer, would regularly sit together in a Düsseldorf kitchen to come up with an original idea for a “thing that should only reveal its true beauty in its absolute uselessness”, preferably one Machine whose function excludes “that it is suitable for misuse”. After many sessions, the bubbling of the coffee machine provided the “eureka”.
Transferred into an artistic longing for eternity, the chalky coffee water that leaves more deposits on the bottom of the glass jug with each use became the “stalactite machine” that was permanently installed in the new building of Oswald Mathias Ungers’ Contemporary Gallery in Hamburg. Since 1996, she has been guiding rainwater from the roof through the house into a biotope with evergreen plants in the foyer, from where it falls drop by drop into the basement with the aim of completing a 5 centimeter high stalagmite there as a contemporary work of art in 500 years. That’s why the vernissage of Ecker’s ingenious art calcification is not until 2496. But nobody can wait that long. And that’s why this exhibition marks the first anniversary of the artist’s lifetime (71) and his interested contemporaries.
The machine needs maintenance for 500 years
Walls full of material from the creation process initially invite you to take a journey into the past. Caves, historical research apparatus, related works of art by Giuseppe Penone, Bruce Nauman or Joseph Beuys, comparisons to musical endless works by John Cage or ideas of space-time sound by Iannis Xenakis form a fanned-out notebook (which unfortunately is not explained anywhere in a completely undidactic way). Ecker’s aluminum discs can also be found there, the aliens, should they land on the devastated earth and cannot speak German, explain in pictures how the stalactite machine in the Hamburger Kunsthalle has to be maintained. And from that midwifery course for a work of art meant to grow long after we’re all long dead, the exhibition branches out into a great variety of slowness, with works by 32 living and dead kindred spirits.
The subterranean slowness also fascinated Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), who drew “Skeletons in the stalactite cave” (around 1826).
(Photo: Christoph Irrgang/Hamburger Kunsthalle/bpk)
In Filmraum, those asked to slow down make friends with a beautifully patterned tiger snail that crawls through an electrical box. Quite unlike the usual nature documentaries that are now edited to the rhythm of music videos, real-time speed and close-up in the video by Nina Canell and Robin Watkins equalize the attention and draw it to the beauty of the abdominal foot. For 38 minutes and 15 seconds, Edith Dekyndt held the camera on a block of ice that was slowly being formed into bizarre shapes by surf waves on Iceland’s Breidarmerkurfjara beach. And for Axel Loytved’s “Starry Sky” you’re supposed to lie down on the floor and pull a perforated cardboard box over your head in order to make the distance of light years imaginable with the smell of floor wax.
The puddles make their own weather
Some physical sculptures show movements as embodied time, in which the unstoppable flow from the past into the future can be experienced. Paper balls rotating at different speeds and hovering in the airflow from six fans (by Attila Csörgő) develop the meditative power of an indoor fountain. Nina Canell’s bowl with the finest water vapor, which slowly changes the consistency of a cement sack that has been cut open next to it, uses the title “Perpetuum Mobile” for the contemplative transformation, ie the machine that works forever without a supply of energy. And the green “consolation puddles” made of clay by Katinka Bock evaporate calcareous tap water as a stalactite machine in time-lapse mode – but are more reminiscent of the constant puddle weather in front of the exhibition windows, for which one really needs consolation.
Where the preoccupation with time actually uses the shortest phenomena as a symbol, as in the case of the lightning machine constructed from two umbrellas that Roman Signer constructed, then in the presentation as a photo it is also transformed back into duration. Just like the exhibited remains of meteorites, which stand here next to the petrified teeth of extinct mammoths for the really big arcs of time. And of course also asking the question why this entertaining Wunderkammer with original works of contemporary art is actually called “Futura”, the futures, when most of the exhibits deal with the past and the present?
In any case, you soon lose the sense of how much time you spend in the exhibition. And that’s where speed and impatience come into play again. Because the attraction of this course typical of the time is its abundance and variety. Many works of art that warn people to slow down eventually encourage nervousness. There’s so much more waiting. And then your patience will be put to the test again. That way no one gets any rest. But that’s also right. Such is the time.
future in the art gallery in Hamburg until April 10, 2022. The exhibition catalog costs 35 euros.