Museum admission fees are rising all over town, a trend that started two years ago with the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art, when it increased its ticket price to $20 from $12. If you have been wondering what, exactly, museums are doing with that extra cash, take a trip to MoMA. There, you can see your tax and ticket dollars at work in two temporary exhibitions: “Out of Time: A Contemporary View” — a group show of some 50 works of contemporary art (most of them recent acquisitions); and “Projects 83: Monika Sosnowska,” a one-person, sitespecific work entitled “The Hole,” which is installed in an adjacent gallery.

“The Hole,” curated by Ann Temkin, is a white room in which a jagged hole has been cut into a false ceiling; and, like fallen ice, variously shaped white forms have been scattered by Ms. Sosnowska across the floor. Now, when I encounter an artwork, such as “The Hole,” that has little aesthetic merit, I still try to figure out its possible relevance to the artist, curator, and museum. I want to know: Why did they bother?

Though not very engaging or interesting to look at,”The Hole” did remind me of two warming trends: (1) Global warming is a fact. And (2) Heating costs are very high right now, so some homeowners, in order to save money, install false ceilings. On the feminist side, you might also go so far as to say — considering that the museum has long had a glass ceiling for women artists and women curators — “The Hole” (curated by a woman; made by a woman) breaks through that ceiling.

“Out of Time” is a little more convoluted. According to the press release, the exhibition, curated by Joachim Pissarro and Eva Respini,”investigates the variety of ways that contemporary artists have expressed the experience of time in their work.”This catch-all thesis — comprising a hodgepodge of painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and installation — sounds much more important and interesting than it actually is. Basically, it means that the artworks (all of which take “time” to look at) took “time” (predetermined or otherwise) to make.

Some works in “Out of Time,” mostly videos, slow down or speed up time. Other works, such as Carrie Mae Weems’s selections from the series “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried” (1995) — in which 19th- and 20th-century photographs of African Americans are altered and mounted under glass etched with inscriptions — allow for contemporary eyes to look at the past.

Oddly enough — considering that Mr. Pissarro is the great-grandson of the great painter Camille Pissarro — not one decent painting or drawing exists in “Out of Time.” Instead, we are exposed to bland, conceptual paintings and drawings by Vito Acconci, Luc Tuymans, Gerhard Richter, Cai Guo-Qiang, On Kawara, and Frank Stella.

Here, process is honored over accomplishment. On view are bad drawings made in allotted time frames by artists William Anastasi (in one hour), Robert Morris (in four minutes), and Janine Antoni (during many months). Mr. Morris, not surprisingly, was blindfolded during the process. For her drawing, Ms. Antoni applied Cover Girl Thick Lash Mascara to her eyelashes then fluttered them (“approximately 2,124 winks”) against the paper.

To me, an artist’s process is a bore (just show me the work); and these views of time and of art seem a little out of date.”Out of Time” presents time in art as if it had been invented or introduced into art during the last few decades. From what I understand about time, it has been around for quite a while, even in art.

It took a long time to build the pyramids, and it took me a long time to experience them long after they were built. (I am still not finished with them, and I plan to go back to Egypt after we have won the war on terror.) And I don’t really care how long it took to make a work of art (a preoccupation of many of the works in “Out of Time”); what matters to me, whether it is a cathedral or a Mondrian, is that the work of art is worth my time. Despite some mildly interesting artworks by Rachel Whiteread, David Goldblatt, Shirazeh Houshiary, and Louise and Jane Wilson, among a few others, most of the works in “Out of Time” fall apart so quickly that time is of little or no issue.

Sometimes, MoMA curators buy art that does not make us go crazy with questions about meaning. Take, for instance, Martin Creed’s “Work No. 227, The Lights Going On And Off” (2000), a prominent new work by a prominent Young British Artist. Purchased by MoMA in 2005, “Work No. 227,” basically an electric timer, is an empty, white, one-room gallery installation in which the overhead lights go on and off at five-second intervals. If you are wondering just what this work is about, know that your confusion is without merit: “The content of this work,” MoMA’s wall text tells us, “is almost nothing: a gallery with bare walls in which the lights turn on and off in intervals of five seconds.” Here, the problem is solved. Who knew that art could be so easy?

Granted, “Work No. 227” is not Mr. Creed’s most inventive artwork. “No. 227” is a rip-off of John Cage’s 1952 sound piece “4’33” (a four-minute, 33-second composition of silence). “227” is also a redux of Mr. Creed’s “Work No. 160” (1996), in which the lights go on and off in one-second intervals; and both “227” and “160” are not nearly as interesting as “Work No. 503” (2006), a one-minute long DVD loop of a woman vomiting.

The very few works in “Out of Time” that do begin to add up include Andy Warhol’s “Empire” (1964), a shortened version of his slow-motion, eight-hour-long stationary film of the Empire State Building; Bill Viola’s “Stations” (1994), a slow-motion, five-channel video/sound installation in which nude figures, viewed upside down and mirrored in slabs of black granite as if in reflecting pools, jump into water, float, and tread; and Pipilotti Rist’s “Ever Is Over All” (1997), a two-channel, slow-motion video/sound work in which, on one screen we see flowers and lush vegetation, while on the other screen a beautiful young woman strides down a car-lined street breaking the cars’ side windows with a long-stemmed flower.

Also of interest is Rineke Dijkstra’s “Almerisa, Asylum Center, Leiden, The Netherlands” (1994–2005), a series of eight photographs taken roughly every 18 months over 11 years, of the same Bosnian girl whose family relocated as refugees in Amsterdam. As social documentation, Ms. Dijkstra’s series is captivating, but the photographs in and of themselves do not warrant our attention. Like the film series that began with “Seven Up,” the photographs allow for us to see when major shifts happen within the same person. In February 1998, Almerisa is still a child. In March 2000, she slouches with adolescent indifference; by December of the same year, though self-conscious in her body, she is a young woman.

Typical of “Out of Time,” though, is “Creative Artists Agency (Los Angeles)” (2005), a do-nothing, hard-edged painting by Sarah Morris. Of course, because of its subject, the painting is supposed to be bad: “The octagonal structures,” the wall text informs us,”are a visually complex interpretation of the web-like, convoluted power relationships that dominate the entertainment industry. Morris charts these connections to create a flashy, hard surface that reflects a culture of superficiality.” Even though I have come across this line of reasoning many times before, it was a surprise here.

Still, I understand the painting’s and the exhibition’s basic premise: Superficial culture requires superficial art. It appears that most of the artists in “Out of Time” — not to mention the show’s curators — believe this to be true. Sadly, they are more concerned with the processes involved with making art than they are with actually making art that is timeless.

“Out of Time” until April 9; “Projects” until November 27 (53 W. 53rd St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 212-708-9400).