The Present Occupies No Space
19 April, 2016 - 26 June, 2016
Boardroom and Little Gallery
This exhibition is curated by 2016 Summer Intern Sarah Hall and features work from the Collection.
Claudia Jowitt, Untitled (2015), Oil on linen
We look for time in everything, yet it is rarely seen to exist in the same sense that you see an object or person. In a way an artwork is a document of time, histories preserved within the layers of a painted surface, or in the patience of a carefully timed exposure. Art as an object of time is revealed through its process, enabling time to be perceived as encapsulating a simultaneous past and present.
The recent move towards the provisional in contemporary art challenges our traditional perception of what it means to allocate our time to artworks. In recent discourses artists have been encouraging the incomplete and amateur, diverging from the traditional values of time, commonly associated with figuration and craftsmanship.
Tom Mackie, Roman Upskirt (2015), Found image, custom frame
The contradictory notion that the present occupies no space, asks the viewer to contemplate what it means to be in the present as an observer. In a world saturated by images, the way we distribute our time to observe works of art has become more sporadic. The artworks ability to captivate, reveals a space in time, which allows us to pause and feed our vision. Some works demand that we slow down whereas others simply let us pass by.
Stop or, at least, slow down. Very few forces within contemporary life ever demand that we do so. And when they do, it’s only for a very short time: just enough for us to notice the change in pace and then go on with our busy existences.
-Yve-Alain Bois