The clefts of time

Along with the concept of space, time is one of the great leitmotifs of art history, and culture in general.

Scott Fitzgerald stated that “any form of life resembles a demolition process”, therefore the concept of time is equivalent to that of destruction. From a more optimistic point of view, Marguerite Yourcenar considered that time was The Great Sculptor.

Galería Pepe Cobo exhibits different visual approaches on the subject and phenomenology of time. All have been carried out in very different techniques (photography, sculpture, drawing, or installation) in a broad time frame spanning between 1976 and 2003, and by artists from different latitudes.

Ann-Sofi Siden’s pieces stem from 3MPH (Horse to Rocket) a work carried out between 2002-2003. These digital photographs illustrate a tour along the natural and human landscape of Texas, where the Swedish artist had to cope with the unexpected, the experience of chance, for 25 long days.

With the photographic eye of a documentary filmmaker but gifted also with emotion, Zoe Leonard confronts the constricting, shackling effect of trees (symbols of life, of growth, of time) on fences and other metallic objects in the urban environment.

Always an outstanding maker of works reflecting on the decadence of the body, Pepe Espaliú created To an unknown god (1989). This piece, reminiscent of García Lorca, consists of four bronze mop of sorts, that speak of the need to cleanse, to clean up. These sculptures go together with three drawings of dreamlike watery landscapes that evoke the fluidity of life. The drawings are crossed by vertical lines that resemble the bronze figures.

From multimedia artist Bruce Nauman –whose video pieces have become experiments in time, space and the way we view them— Galería Pepe Cobo shows a drawing on paper dating from 1988: the conceptual piece called Use me, along with the sculpture Untitled (Crossbeams), 1983 – 1986.

And finally, Gina Pane, an artist essential in understanding the extent to which we can defy our own body. Io mescolo tutto (I mix everything) was showed at the Museum of Modern Art of Bolonia in 1976. For this action she etched a triangle, symbolising her sex, on her skin –a rather bold statement in those years. By drawing that same triangular symbol on sand, she compares the permanent essence of the mark on her skin to the provisional one of nature.

For all these artists –artists of great reach and depth— time is always a disturbing concept that leaves its mark on the individual, its openings and clefts in their emotions.

The clefts of time

artists:
Ann Sofi Sidén, Zoe Leonard, Pepe Espaliu, Bruce Nauman, Gina Pane