what holds you? what proof do you have that you are being held, that you are holding?
The chapters we reviewed from Brettkelly-Chalmers’ Time, Duration, and Change in Contemporary Art holds a myriad of ideas and concepts that inspire and enrapture when it comes to the connections of art and time. The pinpoints of history, of perspective, as asynchronous as they are not, are as informative as they are eye-opening. There are many aspects I considered speaking about in this response, but in the research of my notes, I found that I had underlined and highlighted and continued drawing lines back to the same point through every chapter we read through. Like a puzzle, I kept finding connections back to one idea, chapter after chapter: the concept of presence.
With presence, we begin, again and again, each morning, with ourselves. It speaks to identity, to physical attributes, to emotional associations. In chapter one, Brettkelly-Chalmers moves us towards the idea of the body in relation to art, saying: “The act of artistic measurement is never far removed from the artistic activities of the body, it, in turn, seeks to measure.” Art is never far away with how we choose to express ourselves through our bodies - a direct representation of presence - because who are we without them?
There is an architecture to presence. Simply, this is most directly sorted into physical and emotional attributes. Physical presence encompasses how our body interacts with art. For most, it’s looking at how we enter a gallery. How we hold our posture over the course of looking at and experiencing works of art. Where we look, how we look, whether we touch or balance or interact. With art, we yield ourselves to experience. Different types of art interact with us physically, most not at all. But what would happen if we could? If there were paintings we could touch, would you? If there were paintings we could damage, would you? If there were paintings you could take off the wall and take home, no details to it, would you? Would it feel weird? Would it feel strange and slightly magical, heart racing?
There is no presence to anything without it being an exchange. That’s where emotion comes in: art gratifies and graffitis, differently to each of us, leaving an impression if we are open to it. Art embraces us and offers a kind of eternity, in even just a moment’s glance. Art changes us, gives us an escape, a feeling, doors and imagery and a hand extended into the unknown. It gives us a greater repose, or the opposite of it. It brings the cold of winter, the brutal heat of summer, the feeling of it, the concept of emotion, even before the emotions themselves. Art establishes, but we give as much as we get. There is a beginning to when we interact with art that changes, depending on who we are at the time. The presence of us changes, as we do - constantly. Does this not make art as alive as we are? A constant discovery?
Presence in art is an interesting concept to point out in all of these chapters on time and art because we are constantly shifting. Like art, not always physically, but meaning-wise. Conceptually. We push forward and full back, we change on a moment’s notice. We flip coins and become different people. We hold one another, and we change, but where is our proof, where else could it be, but in our art, in the pieces we hold and carry with us? What else could it ever be, but the heart of us?
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