The Clock Shop

For The Clock Shop, Koelewijn built a full-scale replica of a clock shop on Canal Street in Manhattan. Though he had seen the interior in New York, the idea to reconstruct it did not fully crystallize until later, when he was pondering the concept of time and how to incorporate such a vast and abstract theme into a physical work. While Koelewijn likes to make things (and has said as much), in the process of creating a new work, it is not the object but the idea that is most important.

The artist himself admits that ‘time’ is not the most original subject, yet he still returns to it frequently. Time, after all, affects each and every one of us; it is simultaneously inevitable and elusive. His storefront display filled with clocks moves slowly back and forth like a pendulum. Each clock has stopped working at a different time, yet the space itself continues to swing to and fro – an all-encompassing motion that propels frozen time forward in spite of itself. While the work can be seen as a contemporary vanitas, it is more than that. The primary concern is not the clock as object, but time itself: time as a real phenomenon that starts and stops, ticks and sways, yet cannot be fully grasped. And through the disruptive movement, Koelewijn sharpens our awareness not only of time but of the space in which we are standing.

Following the initial version in 2003, Koelewijn has continued to develop The Clock Shop in iterations. In 2006, the swaying storefront blocked access to the back room at Galerie Fons Welters in Amsterdam. During the 2008 Loco Motion exhibition in De Pont, that gallery setting was reconstructed, including the side walls, ceiling and actual back office from the gallery. Since then, the work has been presented as a freestanding object in the space. Koelewijn later added a clock that had belonged to his deceased parents, and which had been in their home for years. In this way, as he often does, the artist brought a personal element into a universal theme. Although The Clock Shop invites the viewer to pause and reflect on the symbolism of life ticking away, it does so without resorting to sentiment.