New Exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
Duration of the exhibition:23 May to 2 September 2007, Gallery
Media conference: Tuesday, 22. May 2007, 11.00, Gallery
Opening: Tuesday, 22 May, 19.00, Lecture Hall
Curator:Norbert Wild (project manager)
Assistance:Liana Bähler, Gabriela Dietrich, Mario Pellin
Architecture: Frédéric Dedelley, Zurich
"On Time" is an exhibition about the design of timepieces. Around a quarter of a century after the quartz revolution and the first Swatch the whole "time industry" is being driven on by a noticeable striving for form. Whoever only thinks about watches here is not thinking far enough. The exhibition explodes this self-evident idea for Switzerland with a variety of objects which inspire surprise and thought.
Timepieces from the birth-control pill to the digital cuckoo clock
The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich is showing the formal and functional spectrum of devices which ultimately aim to discipline our way of handling time. The product range on show stretches from the wristwatch to GPS, from synchronised timetables to the mobile phone, from the birth-control pill to the family organiser and from the digital cuckoo clock to the palmtop. It shows impressively that there is no escape from time. On the contrary. Despite all modern neologisms such as timeframe, island in time, time prosperity and time management, the number of everyday objects with built in timepieces is growing – and they also tell us the time without being asked.
Design reflects the particular understanding of time
The focus of the exhibition is on developments in design. An exhaustive or chronological presentation can and should not be the intention here. Besides technological production possibilities and market-economical upheavals it is especially social ideas of time which determine the appearance of their "objectivations", meaning their instruments. The form and function of the artistic pacemakers change with the understanding of time from which they emanate: cyclical, linear or fragmentary.
Representatives of a cyclical time structure such as calendars like to orient themselves on recurring occurrences in nature or during the course of a year, while time clocks represent a linear concept of time with a clear beginning and end. On the other hand, the mobile phone – a concealed timepiece – is a typical example of a fragmentary time pattern. With the simultaneity of the unsimultaneous it pursues a way out of the tight corset of time and sees the ultimate aim in the increase of time prosperity.
The exhibition architecture takes the form of a (watch) train
The Zurich designer Frédéric Dedelley has translated the idea of time as a philosophical dimension, social measurement and design challenge into exhibition architecture which is harmonious and explanatory in equal measure. The entrance to the exhibition is formed by a "gangway" with viewing windows to selected objects which make theoretical considerations comprehensible. Then 15 circular exhibition platforms of different sizes are spread throughout the whole room. On these are grouped the exhibits in design-specific subject groups and perspectives such as sports timing, preservation, designer watches, time education and watch and clock faces. The particular shell and arrangement of these exhibition platforms creates the image of a huge watch train which opens the view to content-related references between the individual areas.
The publication on the exhibition
The second volume of the series "Design Collection" is appearing with the exhibition. This series of publications takes contemporary questions as a prompt for the subject-specific presentation of the stock of the Design Collection of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. After Take away follows On Time, a book which does not examine the theme of timepieces from a technological and scientific perspective but puts design questions at the centre for the first time.
Design Collection Volume 2, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (Ed.)
On Time. Objekte der Zeitmessung / Objects of Chronometry
96 pages, 160 colour illustrations, D / E, Verlag avedition
ISBN 978-3-89986-082-5, CHF 39.80
Orders can be placed at: verlag@museum-gestaltung.ch or by fax: +41 (0)43 446 45 67
Contacts:
Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
Miriam Ruesch
Communication assistant
Tel. +41 (0)43 446 67 17
miriam.ruesch@hgkz.ch
Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
Norbert Wild
Curator Design Collection
Tel. +41 (0)43 446 67 66 50
norbert.wild@hgkz.ch
Programme accompanying the exhibition
Sunday 17 June, 11.00 to 15.00
Music – On Time
At each full hour the exhibition becomes an experimental stage where students of the Jugendmusikschule der Stadt Zürich translate the relationship between time and music into sound. At the same time in the lecture hall larger formations play on the theme.
Tuesday, 19 June, 19.45
Utility and Desire: Two „Reports” of Watchmaking Innovation
Nicolas Babey, professor at the Haute école d'arts appliqués La Chaux-de-Fonds, talks about innovation strategies for the design of the timepieces of tomorrow. In English.
Tuesday, 21 August, 19.45
„Fast so kompliziert wie eine Frau"
Tanja Warring, Curator of the IWC-Museum, talks about the presentation of watches and clocks in catalogues and print campaigns of the International Watch Co. Schaffhausen from 1900 until today. In German.
Guided tours of the exhibition
Public guided tours take place each Tuesday at 18.30 and each first Sunday of the month (3.6., 1.7., 5.8., 2.9.) at 15.00. Please find further information about guided tours at: www.museum-gestaltung.ch
May 2007
Tues., 29.5., 18.30Norbert Wild, curator Design Collection
Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
June 2007
Sun, 3.6., 15.00Norbert Wild
Tues., 5.6., 18.30Peter Brugger, head of neuropsychological department of University Hospital Zurich
Tues., 12.6., 18.30Verena Formanek, head of Collections
Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
Tues., 19.6., 18.30Gabriela Dietrich, scientific assistant Design Collection, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
Tues., 26.6., 18.30Verena Formanek
July 2007
Sun., 1.7., 15.00Mario Pellin, art historian/interior designer
Tues., 3.7., 18.30Timm Delfs, specialised journalist
Tues., 10.7., 18.30Norbert Wild
Tues., 17.7., 18.30Mario Pellin
Tues., 24.7., 18.30Gabriela Dietrich
Tues., 31. 7., 18.30Verena Formanek
August 2007
Sun., 5.8., 15.00Gabriela Dietrich
Tues., 7.8., 18.30Timm Delfs
Tues., 14.8., 18.30Verena Formanek
Tues., 21.8., 18.30Gabriela Dietrich
Tues., 28.8., 18.30Mario Pellin
September 2007
Sun., 2.9., 15.00 Gabriela Dietrich
Special guided tours (also in English) as well as workshops for secondary and vocational school classes on request: Tel +41 (0)43 446 67 12 or christine.kessler@hgkz.ch
Opening times during the exhibition
Tuesday – Thursday, 10.00 – 20.00
Friday – Sunday, 10.00 – 17.00
Whit Monday 28. May 10.00 – 17.00
1 – 2 September, Zurich museums' night 19.00 – 02.00
Closed: Mondays, Whitsun 27. May and Swiss National Day 1 August
With the cordial support of:
Embassy, ETERNA SA, TAG Heuer SA, Pierre Junod
Press release
