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'Confounding' Clock With Rotating Face to Warp Time in Central Park

By Shaye Weaver | August 26, 2015 12:26pm
 A clock with seemingly frozen hands will be on display this fall as part of Public Art Fund's newest commission.
Clock Installation Coming to Central Park
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UPPER EAST SIDE — Time will seemingly stop for those passing the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park this fall.

A 16-foot-tall clock — with a face rotating counter-clockwise and its hands moving at correct time — will be on display starting Sept. 10 as part of the Public Art Fund's latest commission.

The installation is a take on the classic New York City street clock that is meant to challenge the public's visual perceptions by "confounding" passersby as they check for the time, according to the Public Art Fund, a non-profit dedicated to funding temporary exhibitions in public spaces.

The clock's face will rotate to the left one fraction every second as the second hand ticks to the right at the same speed and frequency, according to the Public Art Fund. The effect makes it look as if the second hand is stuck in place even though it will always display the correct time, it said.

"Playfully confounding our expectations, Alicja Kwade’s conceptually elegant work forces us to look twice, rethink our assumptions and see the most familiar of objects as if for the first time,” Nicholas Baume, Public Art Fund's director and chief curator, said.

Kwade, who lives in Berlin, has shown her work all over the world, including in City Hall Park as part of Public Art Fund's "Lightness of Being" exhibition in 2013.

The installation will be on display in the plaza, at the east side of the park at E. 60th Street, through Feb. 14, 2016.