Take your time with this one...
Considerations of time will take centre stage at Crawford Art Gallery this spring with major new exhibition opening this weekend.
Running from 17 February to 3 June, ‘A Matter of Time’ considers temporality within a broad spectrum, focusing on the human experience.
The exhibition explores time’s presence in the most common, mundane of human activities, but also in the more significant and profound elements of human experience. It says that time can be wasteful, enduring, precious, and elusive. It can be measured intuitively through the seconds ticking past on a clock, by the growth spurt of a teenager, or the aeons of a mountain’s erosion. Yet, embedded in the construct of human societies, time is also a central characteristic of power, control, capitalism, morality, and belief.
Featuring over 60 works by 25 Irish and international artists, ‘A Matter of Time’ is an expansive, ambitious, and thought-provoking exhibition that gallery-goers can truly immerse themselves in. Displayed over two gallery floors, the exhibition alludes to many of the human constructs around it and includes themes of nationhood, post-colonialism, appropriation, memory, health, urbanism, mediation, re-emergence, hope and legacy.
Featured artworks include ‘The Peoples Portraits 1899-1918’ (2018) by Amanda Dunsmore, a series of 100 portraits selected from thousands of glass plate negatives discovered by the artist at the Northern Ireland Prison Service Training College at Woburn House in Millisle, Co. Down.
Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov’s ‘Just A Matter Of Time’ is series of nine watercolours that - in his own inimitable style - explore the notion of time through his customary wry humour, dark truths, and exquisite imagery.
Occupied East Jerusalem native Rula Halawani’s ‘For My Father’ features ten large-scale monochrome photographs detailing the Israeli occupation of Palestine from the vantage point of fading recollection.
British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare's iconic photographic suite, ‘Diary of a Victorian Dandy’ (1998), depicts a 24 hour period in the fictional life of a 19th century dandy, played by Shonibare himself. Drawing on William Hogarth’s aptitude for social criticism, Shonibare’s own presence in this series as a black man inverting the hierarchy of skin colour in an overwhelmingly white world represents the visual reinstatement of black faces and stories into racially exclusive national narratives.
Exhibition curator Dawn Williams paid tribute to the generosity of the artists, private collections, international galleries, and institutions including the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), the Hugh Lane Gallery and the Arts Council of Ireland, all of whom loaned artworks for the exhibition. “The works, whilst stimulating, can be unsettling in perhaps underscoring how almost every facet of our lives is dominated by the human construct of time,” she said.
An extensive Learn & Explore programme of artists’ conversations, tours, and workshops will accompany the exhibition. See crawfordartgallery.ie or social media updates for details.