For anyone who’s been in a particularly contemplative mood about life lately, Wesleyan University’s Ezra and Cecile Zikha Gallery has the perfect exhibition for you. Passing Time, a popular exhibition of works by fourteen international artists exploring the multiple and entangled meanings of the phrase “passing time”, has come to Middletown. The numerous meanings of the phrase “passing time” are explored in the exhibit using a variety of imagery, from film to photography to music.
Passing Time is organized by the university’s Center for the Arts and curetted by Ginger Gregg Dugan and Judith Hoos Fox of c2_curator squared. The exhibition features a number of internationally known artists like Stefana McClure. McClure has participated in group and solo shows in Germany and London and has been an artist in residence in Germany.
On paper, Passing Time seems very abstract. An exhibition examining the concepts of time and which attempts to explore “the relationship between the time of our life and the time of the eons”? I entered the gallery with a lot of skepticism about how I, or anyone else, could relate to these ideas on a personal level. However, my concerns were misbegotten. At its best, Passing Time uses creative visuals to beautifully illustrate how time, any way you perceive it, acts as a framework to measure and define people’s lives.
As you enter the gallery, Passing Time immediately makes an impression with a pair of photographs by Rikeke Dijkstra. Two photos of a young female Israeli soldier, with one showing the subject at the Israeli Army’s induction center and the second taken eight months later at her base, starkly demonstrate how a person can experience significant life and personality changes over a short period of time. Where the subject appears innocent and yet confident in her future at her induction ceremony, it is clear that this innocence has disappeared eight months later to be replaced by vulnerability. The cold, harsh reality of the subject’s current existence will affect her future one.
Another piece which captures the thesis of Passing Time is Ken Fandell’s The Planets. The Planets is a multimedia piece that uses video and audio to heighten the significance of mundane gestures such as a person moving their head or waving their hand. Fandell sped up and slowed down these gestures, thus creating alternate visual patterns. These visuals, set to powerful music, encapsulate how every action or gesture a person takes can be influential and yet miniscule in the time of the eons. Fandell reminds viewers that their actions are a representation of their larger humanity. It is a thought that’s equally disconcerting and powerful.
The superior piece at Passing Time was not a photograph, painting or video. Instead, it featured nothing more than framings of words on a page. But the words in Luis Calmnitzer’s Last Words piece were gut-wrenching. The final thoughts of death-row inmates in Texas are a window to the reality of death. When you see the very personal thoughts of death-row inmates and understand the equal levels of desperation and bravery they have heading into their day of reckoning, it causes a person to consider their own mortality. What would you say to your loved ones on the precipice of death? What parts of your life would you apologize for, and which parts would you look back on with pride? How much bravery would you show in the face of death? These are the questions Last Words prods you to consider. The best pieces of art are capable of making you look at your life differently in some way. Last Words reminds you of your humanity and the people in your life whom you truly value. The piece is incredibly profound.
Passing Time is open from noon-4 pm Tuesday-Sunday in the Ezra and Cecile Zikha Gallery and will be running until March 4th.
Great article! Makes me want to go see this!
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