Clock/The Observer 旁观者

Creator(s)

Jin-Song WANG 王劲松

Preview

Date

1996

Format

Photograph

Materials

Clock with painted photographs

Description

This photograph-installation seems to be consisted of twelve specially designed clocks, captured all at different time. On the face of each clock prints a photograph the artist took at various sites in Beijing. All of the photographs seem to feature the artist himself, casting him as a spectator to a crowd or a streetscape -- the artist dresses often in a dark sunglasses and a black shirt. The spectator (or "observer") that the artist played role of in this work might form the work's key theme: that the artist wishes to have in himself a share of sobriety and clarity of that of spectator to survey the world; not in a condescending way as sometimes the "outsider" perspective is understood, but in an egalitarian, but indifferent way. (Yu, 观看“旁观”——走进王劲松的艺术世界, 2011, available on https://news.artron.net/20110117/n147016.html). (Jerry Wu'23).