Bettina Pousttchi, ‘Los Angeles Time’, 2011

Los Angeles Time, 2011

C-Print
120 x 150 cm
47¼ x 59 in
Bettina Pousttchi has often contemplated systems of time and space in her art. Between 2008 and 2016, she traveled around the globe to make World Time Clock, a series of twenty-four photographs taken in twenty-four different time zones. In each location, the artist captured a picture of a public clock at the same local moment: five minutes before two in the afternoon. Representing places as far-flung as Mexico City, Bangkok, and Tashkent, the images together suggest what the artist calls an “imaginary global synchronism.” The series also charts the reach of colonial power, showing, for example, how imitations of London’s iconic Big Ben denote the public time in faraway places like Mumbai, Sydney, and Cape Town. (Taken from the website of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC)