An important notice about changes this week (23 - 28 March)

Since Monday March 22 was a public holiday (and the JAG closed), the changes that would have been made today are being made on Tuesday 23 March, with some final addititions to the show taking place on Wednesday 24 March. The exhibition will remain open to the public while we work.

Two new works are being added to the exhibition in the next two days. The first is a data artwork by Tegan Bristow, which graphically represents various archives of taxonomical information sourced in the JAG annual reports. The second is an installation by Alexandra Makhlouf that interacts with and modifies prior exhibition material.

A great new addition worth seeing is James Sey's video installation Sublimation and Reversibility, which was installed last week.

An installation view of James Sey's Sublimation an Reversibility, a video projection and installtion that took painting x-rays from the JAG archives as its starting point.

If you are not interested in seeing works mid-installation, you might prefer toavoid the exhibition on Tuesday and Wednesday morning and visit instead from Wednesday afternoon onwards. Visitors are, however, welcome in the exhibition space at all times during gallery opening hours.

Regimented changes

For the four weeks of Time's Arrow's installation at the JAG, the show has been changing on a weekly basis according to a regimented program prescribed by Rodan Kane Hart's art new artwork for the show, Developments of Space. Rodan responded to the artists' brief with a work that would force weekly curatorial changes in the largest room of the exhibition by means of a moving line that causes a displacement of artworks as it gains ground in the room. The movement of this line is marked in the space with white insulation tape, and the displacing line moves two metres along the length of the wall every Monday.  In place of the displaced works, photographer Mikasa Sonnenberg is displaying photographs I have decided to respond to Rodan's work by removing other works each week, rather than moving and rehanging them as the line approaches. made this decision because I felt it would be more interesting to highlight how duration on a gallery wall carries with it an implicit value ascription. I have found this disciplined programme of removal difficult precisely because certain sequences of works that I felt were strong or that were popular with viewers had to be removed relatively early in the exhibition. The removal of William Kentridge's video Mine, particularly, made some people very grumpy. Picking a bit of vinyl text off the wall  letter by letter - a citation from Jacques Derrida's Memoirs of the Blind of which I am very fond - was almost heartbreaking. So far the line has spared any new works made for the show, but I am quietly dreading its arrival at Thenjiwe Nkosi's Gallery paintings and Alex Dodd's installation Making Room. It is hard to break the habit of thinking that certain works deserve more wall-time than others, that preservation and endurance are signs of importance.

This is what the exhibition looks like for now:

Serge Nitegeka's Equilibrium flees the approaching line.

Mikasa Sonnenberg's photodocumentation of the shrinking exhibition

A view of the northern-most end of the exhibition. On the left wall is Murray Kruger's Archiving Absence, text excerpts from a series of interviews with JAG librarian Jo Burger which will later be incorporated into a video documentary.

The three changes the exhibition has undergone so far have established the process of regular modification in the exhibition, and from now until the end of the month, while the regimented movement of Rodan's work will continue, other changes will be made in response to the exhibition's own progress, its public reception and curatorial difficulties, mistakes and successes. Regular updates and warnings of these changes will be posted on this blog from now on.

Some images

For those who are eager to see what the show is all about, but haven't yet managed the journey to the Johannesburg Art Gallery, here are some photographs taken by the excellent Simon Marcus.

 An installation view of the exhibition in week 1.

 

 Alex Dodd's installation Making Room, which uses works from the

JAG Collection, found objects and a text written by Dodd. 

 Thenjiwe Nkosi's three paintings Gallery 1 (1915), Gallery 1.1 (1940s)
and Gallery 1.2 (1980s)

A better view of Thenjiwe Nkosi's Gallery paintings

Alexander Opper's work

Accumulation #1 (approximately a century's worth of cornice dust from the Johannesburg Art Gallery)
(found dust on paper)

Phillip Raiford Johnson's Running Clock, a working digital stopwatch with flourescent tubes.
The clock runs in minutes and hours and is attached to a movement-sensor device that causes it to reset whenever someone walks past.

We are open for something that feels a lot like business, minus the money

  Alexander Opper, Negotiation, 2010, Site-specific installation – equal volumes of repositioned soil and lawn from the main courtyard of the Johannesburg Art Gallery and Joubert Park respectively . Image courtesy of the artist.

A huge thanks to everyone who came to the the opening of Time's Arrow at the JAG last night. We had a great crowd, enough wine, and plenty friends from the insect kingdom in the wings to help direct the party elsewhere after nightfall.

This time-based exhibibition has now begun, which means that curatorial changes will start taking place from next Monday, and every Monday thereafter, for the duration of the exhibition, works will be moved, added or removed from the show (please note that the JAG is closed on Mondays). Works to look out for in the coming weeks are James Sey's video installation Sublimation and Reversibility, which uses painting conservation x-rays from the JAG archives as a starting point for an examination of sublimation and sublimity in the formation of art and urban archives; a growing installation by Alexadra Makhlouf, which responds directly to works in the exhibition; and lots more. Watch this blog for updates and documentation of changes.

The work pictured above is Alexander Opper's land work Negotiation. For this work, Alex excavated three square metres of grass from Joubert Park and grafted it into the courtyard of the JAG to spell the word "PARK". The are dug out of the park was then filled with soil from the JAG courtyard to spell the word "Museum". See Alex's page (in the sidebar) for his persctive on this work, and on another work of his on the show, Accumulation #1: approximately a century's worth of cornice dust from the Johannesburg Art Gallery (a huge hit at the opening).

Stolen moments during installation

The exhibition is just about up, and looks good for a half-cooked something. Sunday is showtime, and more pictures and content will come after then.

 This is Serge Nitegeka installing his work Equilibrium
in the East Wing of the Johannesburg Art Gallery

Serge with Equilibrium again. In the backgroun you
can seeJane Alexander's Integration Programme
and Phillip Wilson-Steer's Lime Kiln (1887).

This is Thenjiwe Nkosi rearranging the display case from
the JAG's Foundation Collection room with some previously
un-displayed photographs and newspaper clippings
dug up in the JAG library archives.

Before the beginning

Welcome to the Time's Arrow blog. As this exhibition progresses towards its opening next Sunday, this blog will track its progress. It will also provide readers with information about the exhibition - press releases, details of curatorial changes, walkabouts, events, images, background information and some texts and quotes I just can't help but share. I will start adding this content over the next few days. Thanks for visiting, and don't forget to come to the opening at the Johannesburg Art Gallery next Sunday, February 21 2010, at 5pm.

 Yesterday and today we hung some historical and contemporary works, and whatever it is that comes between them, from the JAG collection.

Opening Sunday Feb 21, 2010 at 5pm