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culture

From time to time…

And in the beginning, there was… time. And since that This timelessness of time, if one may put it that way,
beginning, humans have been marking it, attempting draws the exhibit directly into the rest of the museum.
to measure it, and almost desperately trying to come to
terms with its elusiveness. At first, it was simple: there From its pre-history section through the great civilizations
were the seasons, the cycles of the moon, the tides – of the ancient world, into the Middle Ages and on to the
broad measures that gave us points of orientation within Renaissance whence into our own “modern” age, the Art
a universe too vast to be tamed. History Museum houses a fabulous collection of art objects
meant to endure. They are testimony to the human effort at
Then, in the second half of the seventeenth century, clocks self-expression in tangible and very visible ways, intended
were invented (by the Dutch!), which made possible not to say much more that what they say – at least at first glance.
only an extraordinarily – for the time – accurate dividing And here we are being asked to consider them as sorts of
up and marking of time but also a slowly but steadily time pieces, marking the periods in which they were created
increasing awareness of its passing. but intended to outlive those periods, to transcend them.

Geneva’s Art History Museum has two exhibits running Seen in the perspective of the time pieces exhibit, the
through the summer devoted to two quite different entire museum can be construed as a vast and varied
aspects of this phenomenon: measuring time and passing collection of time pieces.
– or “killing” – time.
For, while the clocks and watches, often art objects in
The first, 10 milliards d’années (Ten Billion Years) explores themselves, are also machines, the art objects go beyond
our notions of time as both a universal, undefined the mere functional – and even decorative. Thus, we are
concept and as specific periods that we mark using our asked to consider our efforts to measure the passage
times pieces. of time in the light of our efforts to express ourselves
concretely in a way that will stand the test of time and
The title is the estimated life expectancy of our sun, which endure beyond our life times.
is moving toward its mid-point. In 5.5 billion years, the
sun will have burnt out, which will mean the end of life The second exhibit, Pass-temps (Pass-Times), upstairs,
on earth (as we know it, anyway) and probably the end is simplistic at first glance – how we use/kill time and
of the earth itself. the sorts of things that can come out of grappling with
and conquering tedium. But the simplicity is deceptive,
This, of course, poses the question of just what we for the visitor is drawn into a world where marking the
might imagine life on earth could be like so far in the passage of time, either by amusing oneself or simply
future when the end comes, especially since we have keeping the tedium at bay, results – again! – in a serious
almost no solid knowledge of what it has been like for questioning of our relationship with time and how we
most of the previous 4.5 billion years of its life so far. confront its passing, in this instance, when it seems to
If such a measure of time is too vast for us to grasp stand still. Here, the passage of time is not expressed by
it in any really meaningful way and make practical quantifiable duration but by a material accomplishment
use of it, it nonetheless bespeaks our constant search at the end of a period of immobility.
for a quantitative expression of this so elusive of
phenomena. Right inside the gallery is a glass bottle, probably 75
centiliters, suspended on its side in the air with an armada
Within such a context, our time pieces (and the exhibit of ships inside, testimony to almost unbelievable patience
has many, as befits what has long been one of the world’s and craftsmanship, for each ship and the entire setting is the
great centers of the watch and clock industry) all look result of the assembling of hundreds of minuscule pieces of
like what they are: remarkably small, delicate human material small enough to get through the neck of the bottle.
machines (even the great ones on buildings) that at best
serve to remind us that time, as the age-old saying has it, One can imagine a long pair of chop sticks, very thin and
waits for nobody. very delicate, and someone, the master shipwright, slowly,

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