Clocked Perspective

Anri Sala built an outdoor sculpture - a distorted clock - in beautiful Karlsaue for dOCUMENTA (13).  There are actually two ways to see Sala's clock: at Karlsaue and through a telescope in the Orangerie.  Like many other visitors, I missed the view through the telescope.  I remember seeing at the Orangerie, some 2 km away from Sala's work, an old landscape painting with a real clock embedded in it.  While the landscape was painted in perspective, the embedded clock looked awkward and clearly didn't fit.  On reading some information afterwards, I realized that Sala's clock, built distorted to appear like one in perspective, was supposed to correct the perspective of the clock in the painting - a subtle but clever idea.  It's distorted but actually tells the correct time!

Sala at Karlsaue, Kassel 2012: