Emily Braun
Emily Braun is Distinguished Professor, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. An historian of modern European and American art, cubism, and the culture of the Fascist period, she curated Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2015); and co curated The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and their Salons (The Jewish Museum, 2005) and Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2023) among other exhibitions. Her work has been recognized by the Henry Allen Moe Prize, the American Association of Museum Curators, the Dedalus Foundation, and a National Jewish Book Award. She is a recipient of Fellowships from the Getty Foundation and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the NYPL. Since 1987 she has curated The Leonard A. Lauder Collection.
There have been many single-author pieces on The Clock, but I wanted to juxtapose different voices, expertise, and ages (spanning six decades) in response to its montage fabric and temporal structure. Call it “chronographic criticism,” a time-based approach for time-based media. It adds up to a cumulative coverage of the entire twenty-four hour work. Yes, the structure submits to the diabolical demands of the industrial clock, but such are the creative constrictions of time.
The clock tower marks half past twelve. The sun is high and burning in the sky. Light falls on houses, palaces, porticos. On the ground, their shadows trace rectangles, squares, and trapezoids with a black so soft that it refreshes burning eyes. What light! How lovely it would be to live down there, near an embracing portico or a whimsical tower covered with little multicolored flags, among gentle and intelligent men. Has such an hour ever come?
