Compared to the display in Milan, the exhibition in Beijing includes an expanded, updated selection of works which take account of China's newly emerging and already established design potential. A wide-ranging display of original site-specific works, installations, design objects, works of art and videos by international artists and designers seek to answer questions such as: "How is time measured?", "How can passing time be shown?" and "How can time be experienced?". All the works exhibited tackle subjects such as the passage of time, time's evolution, and decay over time, in ways that are sometimes ironic, sometimes poetic, sometimes meditative and sometimes critical.

The CAFA Art Museum in Beijing is one of the most important art museums in China. Part of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, it was designed by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki and completed in March 2008. Architecturally it is a three-dimensional form with a curvilinear surface, which has acquired a sculptural element through its use of natural slates on the exterior. CAFA is a research institution which organises numerous exhibitions and activities, acting as a platform for Chinese and international cultural exchange.

While figurative art, cinema and photography have developed lengthy and profound reflections on the subject of time, design on the other hand has usually restricted its treatment of the subject to the areas of accuracy, measurement and functionality. Yet the relationship between time and design is actually much more complex and it can open up surprising perspectives from the aesthetic point of view as well as from the functional one.

O'Clock

time design, design time

7th March - 10th April 2013

CAFA Art Museum, Beijing

Curated by Silvana Annicchiarico and Jan van Rossem

Exhibition design and graphics: Patricia Urquiola

Opening Times:

Tuesday - Sunday, 9:30 - 17 :30 Last admission at 17 :00

Closed on Mondays

Tel. (Information Desk) : 86-10-64771575

http://www.cafamuseum.org

Triennale Design Museum

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COUNTING SAND

Yang Xinguang, 2009

courtesy Boers-Li Gallery

For this work, it took a lot of time to count the mound of sand twice. Since it is easy to lose focus and be distracted during the counting process, the artist got two different numbers in the end. An attempt to discover what is "real" through a process that is highly reliant on self-discipline.

THE CLOCK CLOCK

Per Emanuelsson & Bastian Bischoff - Humans since 1982

engineering: David Cox, 2010

courtesy Humans since 1982

On the face of twenty-four square analog clocks piled up one on top of the other the minute and hour hands quickly rotate. But this eccentric clock's secret is soon revealed. The hands of each of the analog clocks all together make up a larger digital hand. Twelve clocks mark the hours, while the other twelve clocks mark the minutes. Should we be surprised to learn that it took 24 hours - just like the number of hours in a day - to create this graphic design?

One Minute Collection

Marcel Wanders, 2006-2007

courtesy Marcel Wanders

The objects that make up this collection by Marcel Wanders (not just clocks, but statuettes, vases, urns, etc.) were hand-painted within a specific time interval. In a minute, Wanders attempted to capture in the blue (specifically blue Delft porcelain) the idea of time that is needed to make/build something. Being a variable that is only in part predictable, time thus becomes the source and the measure of the creative gesture, and makes it possible to offer a touch of uniqueness and preciousness to the manufacture of series and mass-produced objects.