Investigating illusory distinctions of past, present and future

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There is no shortage of engaging material in this this fascinating and stimulating compilation, says Howard Hollands

Time: Documents of Contemporary Art, edited by Amelia Groom

The target audience for the extensive series of titles that make up the ‘Documents of Contemporary Art’ is the ‘interested reader’, but particularly from the fields of the criticism, history, teaching or arts practice. The series sets out to provide a diverse and provocative range of approaches to a particular issue and this latest, titled Time, is no exception and the contributions come from areas in both fiction and non-fiction.

 Time has three sections according to the ‘illusory distinctions of past, present and future’ and renamed as; ‘Before’, ‘During’ and ‘After’. Inevitably, with a title as slippery as ‘Time’, categorizations become stretched, but as an organizational device it works well in this volume.

Given the theme of ‘Time’ and the implications for what is meant by ‘contemporary’, and being read now, in the illusory present, it is perhaps surprising that there are not more pre-20th-century contributions as, these are, arguably, equally contemporary, but there is no shortage of engaging material.

The editor’s level of research is broad and deep as shown through her introduction that draws upon her doctoral dissertation on the same topic. The collection of texts ranges from George Kubler’s ‘The Shape of Time’, which challenged linear narratives of history, to analyses of Christian Marclay’s astonishingly skilful looped 24-hour video, The Clock (2010), a collage made from thousands of fragments of found footage from the history of film cinema with each fragment depicting a visual image of time. This film, about time, is a clock in its own right as it is viewed in real time synchronized to the actual time of the place where it is viewed. The anxiety generated when viewing the film is captured well by writer Lynne Tillman:

It was Thursday – 3.15pm, 3.16pm, 3.17pm – I was watching time pass. My time. It was passing, and I was watching it. What is this watching, what am I watching for? I wouldn’t, couldn’t wait for the end.

It’s worth noting that there are no images in this book, and from the few others I have read in the series, this seems to be a conscious editorial decision. One can understand the reasoning here, given the power of images in relation to the text, but this might be frustrating for some readers given the wonderful possibilities with this theme. Nonetheless, the comparatively short and pithy length of the contributions, the layout, and the well-chosen typeface makes for easy access to the ideas. As a book that encourages re-reading and reference it is produced in a robust soft-back form with a double folding cover – this makes for comfortable reading.

On the opening page we are presented with a quotation from Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, which might as easily be located on the final page of this fascinating and stimulating compilation:

We look at the present through a rear-view mirror.
We march backwards into the future

As I read this new addition to the series I am conscious of the way it links, possibly unknowingly, to contributions in earlier titles I have read, for example, Memory, Ruins or Failure. In this way, the series simply gets richer and richer as a collection and library and as a valuable resource. This is a great collection that must certainly pass the test of time.

Time: Documents of Contemporary Art, edited by Amelia Groom, is published by Whitechapel Gallery with MIT Press. 237 pp., unillustrated, ppb. ISBN: 978-0-85488-215-1