Esther Schipper, Berlin
On view through October 18, 2025
A water clock.
Time flows.
Each drop a measure, each rhythm an echo.
Like a polyphonic chorus of broken streams.
As part of Berlin Art Week, Esther Schipper Gallery presents Clepsydra, Tauba Auerbach’s first exhibition with the gallery. Named after the ancient water clock, the exhibition reimagines the measure and fluidity of time through the language of painting. Featuring new works from Auerbach’s Extended Object series, the show captures the movement of water, the rhythm of gravity, and the transience of form on the canvas surface—each painting like a photograph of a frozen flow.
Auerbach’s practice explores connections between microscopic and cosmic structures. Moving freely between painting, sculpture, weaving, musical instrument design, photography, typography, and video, the artist develops custom tools and techniques to observe and reframe the behavior of matter. In doing so, physical laws become both a tool and a subject.
In Clepsydra, time itself is treated as a material. The fall of water, vibrations on a surface, the shattering of a drop—all are aesthetic reflections of natural laws. Auerbach’s paintings exist in both motion and pause, at once choreographed and serendipitous.
In the artist’s world, nature’s order is a field of inquiry; each form carries clues to the universe’s structure. These works strike a balance—visually serene yet conceptually dense: a dialogue between flow and stillness, measure and uncertainty, nature and mathematics.
Tauba Auerbach’s Clepsydra does not fix time; it makes it visible. Each painting is an echo of water filtering through a moment—reminding as it flows, moving even when still.
