Now and The non-watch is thematically the follow-up exhibition to the show Now, at the Grazer Kunstverein. The two exhibitions describe two parallel states of the present. As in “side-shadowing”, a practice from historical research and literary criticism, as well as in science fiction formats, an attempt is made to understand the “now” by viewing it from a parallel perspective.
Nora Schultz’s work combines post-minimalism and conceptual art, but, like Richard Serra, Eva Hesse, and Carl Andre before her, Schultz does not strictly adhere to a dematerialized sensibility. By using found industrial materials such as steel rods, rubber, sheet metal, and ropes, as well as language and literature, Schultz attempts to expand on the concerns of her predecessors, as if searching for a material mode of expression that differs from the pictorial and textual.
The installation at Galerie Meyer Kainer consists of several elements that literally inscribe themselves into the space. The video work installed by the artist in the entrance area shows a drum performance on a self-cast drum cymbal and creates an acoustic connection that frames the space and establishes a performative relationship between the installation and the exterior space. The same video runs in parallel in the exhibition in Graz, whereas in Vienna it is played alternately ‘normally’, i.e., forwards and then backwards—an attempt to take the capacity for abstraction regarding the elasticity of time and space to the extreme. Especially at night, seen from the street, the cycle closes. The sound in the video appears slightly delayed at times, when the sound does not begin with the sticks hitting the cymbal, but rather when the shadow of the sticks hits the cymbal in the video. The shadow is used quasi-physically and refers in the video to a sculptural practice.
A spacious “clock sculpture” spanning the two main rooms—an abstract spatial drawing—is used scenically by the artist to add a spatial (third) dimension to the temporal framework and shapes the overall impression, as if the space between the hours were folding back.
The four abstract sculptures (People’s Path Clock, Frog Clock, Time-pocketed Clock, and Squiggle Clock), which are distributed across the three exhibition rooms, represent another transmission of refelctions about time and gravity. They are made of glass, fiberglass rods, thin aluminum wire, and tin castings. They, too, tell of gravity, of reflections on structures, of notations and drawings, of units of time and the idiosyncrasies of sculptures. The central moment here is displacement, destabilization, and transformation. Thus, the works often appear to be in a precarious, fragile state—somehow thrown off balance, but only to the extent that they still maintain their cohesion. All elements share the common goal of approaching a space-time entity based on imagination or memory. The sculptures consist partly of found components, but also of self-made elements—such as nuts cast from tin.
Nora Schultz
Born 1975, Frankfurt am Main
Solo exhibitions and solo performances include:
Grazer Kunstverein (2025); Kunsthalle Bremerhaven (2024); O-Town-House, Los Angeles (2021), Secession, Vienna (2019); Kunstverein Braunschweig (with Inge Mahn, 2017); Whitney Museum, NY (performance, 2017); KADIST Art Foundation, Paris (2016); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2016), Galerie Meyer Kainer (2015); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2014); Performance Room, Tate Modern, London (2014); Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2012); Giuliani Foundation, Rome (2010); Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2009).