Time is one of the most materially elusive notions. We often associate it with movement by saying that time passes by or time flows. We perceive and understand time in a personal and subjective way. As a child, time passes slowly, as we grow older, it seems to accelerate. The title ‘After now’ invites us to imagine what time can be and how it can be differently experienced. Contemporary art can bring a new awareness and understanding of time, in an age where the technological and economic factors play an increasing role in shaping our lives.

The compiled works in ‘After now’ encompass paintings, photographs, videos, sculptures and graphic art that tackle the temporality of the past, present and future in various ways. They evoke the passage of time, introduce a world of timelessness ruled by phantasy and dreams, show time’s effect on the artistic process, or respond to the Anthropocene - an era of the man-made transformations of the natural environment.

The paintings of Jean-Frédéric Schnyder ‘Sonnenuntergänge’ (1996) and ‘Kleine Bilder (E)’ (2015-2019) both explore the motif of the sunset by reminding us about nature’s everyday rhythm. In the woodcut ‘Die Insel der Zeiten’ (2016), Patrick Graf creates a time capsule, where he develops a narrative by merging different epochs in one geographical place. In the photographic series ‘Double Vision (Native Plants)’ (2013) Uriel Orlow addresses historical issues through the memory of nature and plants. Roman Signer incorporates time in his sculptural process in the series of video prints ‘Eimer’ (2002). Julian Charrière explores the impact of human activity in nature over time, in the sculpture ‘Future Fossil Spaces’ (2014), the fossils of lithium from the desert Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia act as physical markers of time.