Le Temps

Ben Vautier, 1961 · Gallery 408 · Floor 4

Look at this. A French alarm clock. The kind your grandmother had on the nightstand. Ben Vautier claimed it. Called it Le Temps. French for Time. Somebody's factory made this. He took it and said: ok, mine now. And he didn't call it Clock. Or Alarm. Or Red Object. He called it Time. The fucking balls on this guy. In 1961 he's running a record shop in Nice. Calls himself a junk dealer. He'd seen what Duchamp did, and the way he tells it, that gets him going. So he signs things. Objects. Girls. Pebbles on the beach. He's got a phrase for it. Moi Ben je signe. Me, Ben, I sign. His whole thesis fits on a napkin. Everything is art. So back then, you could ring a number and a voice would tell you the time. Ben writes it down. That's art too. So here it is. Time. Four inches tall. Two little legs. Paint coming off. Half past six, give or take. The next year, he signs himself. Five hundred bucks. That's the asking price. Then he puts himself in a shop window. October 1962. Gallery One, London. Fifteen days in a cage. On display around the clock. Calls it Living Sculpture. He meets the Fluxus crowd there. They are a group of artists who figured art could be an everyday object, or something you did. Didn't have to cost much. You can see why they got along. Later, this little clock gets filed under Fluxus too. Except, you know, Ben had claimed it the year before he met them.

▶ Listen on Listen to Frank

Also in Gallery 408