Pierre Huyghe Timekeeper (Drill Core), Sprengel Museum, 2016

A paradigmatic example of Pierre Huyghe’s investigation of exhibitions as time-based experiences, the Timekeeper project began in 1999 with a site-specific wall installation made for the artist’s solo exhibition Le procès du temps libre at the Vienna Secession.

The Hauptraum in the Vienna Secession is known as the first “white cube” gallery space. For this work, which only existed for the duration of the exhibition, Huyghe sanded down a 20 cm eye-level section of white wall in the exhibition space to uncover the layers of paint left by previous exhibitions. By using an electrical circular sander, the older coats of paint were revealed in colorful concentric rings, reminiscent of the growth rings of a tree. The work effectively became a portrait of the institution’s activities: on the shallower outside of the sanded down circular area more recently painted layers could be seen, while the paint revealed further down at the center had been covered the longest.

Timekeeper (Drill Core), Sprengel Museum was extracted in advance of the exhibition by the artist, during preparation of his 2016 solo exhibition at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, which celebrates Huyghe’s receipt of the esteemed Kurt Schwitters Award in 2015. Founded in 1979, the Sprengel Museum is one of the most prestigious museums in Germany.