↳ Exhibitions

Time Adverbs at CentroCentro

April 25, 2018

Artists: Serafín Álvarez, Cécile B. Evans, Nora Barón, Nina Canell, Julian Charrière, Marian Garrido, Mia Goyette, Rubén Grilo, Camille Henrot, Hanne Lippard, Regina de Miguel, Jacopo Miliani, Shana Moulton, Mélodie Mousset, Laure Prouvost

Exhibition title: Time Adverbs

Curated by: Cristina Anglada

Venue: CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain

Date: February 16 – May 6, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and CentroCentro, Madrid

Note: Exhibition booklet can be found here

We perceive the future as a realm of conjectures, visions, and omens into which we project our present. Time Adverbs aims to reflect on the future from the perspective of narrative and fiction, and from their connections with the human experience of time in a present that has gone berserk. The fact is that existing in time consists primarily of having time and therefore, being able to measure it (expressions of time, conjugation of tenses, time adverbs, etc.). Time is human insofar as it is expressed in narrative form. A story, in turn, is meaningful insofar as it describes the chronological aspects of the experience.

How is this relationship between narrative and time configured if the structure of time is currently in crisis? We are talking of the rupture of a specific experience of time, that of the ancient linearity of space and time, which might have abandoned us partly due to technological intervention. Everyday life has been invaded by technological devices, which endow us with a sense of omnipresence and omnipotence that is nothing other than being perpetually distracted. We think everything is available right here and now, even memory, which is externalised. We can bring the past to the present with just a click, even though this might entail leaving behind the experience that accompanies every memory, whose function is to filter and give meaning to our past, present, and future actions.

On the other hand, prevalent neoliberal values —with labour efficiency in the center— together with consumption and built-in obsolescence, impose the experience of passing time as an obstacle to avoid. The sense of durability and of delay disappears, as does the possibility of contemplation and pause, and, in its place, a shapeless succession of moments take over (presentism: the search for and the desire to accumulate experiences that we can constantly renew).

Our atavistic interest in the future (toward which we are biologically oriented) is now more obsessive than ever before and it generates a flood of narratives marked by the extreme character of the dichotomies typical of biotechnological determinism. There is talk of the trend towards an inexorable progress of the human species following advances in nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering, which, paradoxically, could also lead to the disappearance of our species not only because of an environmental collapse, but also because of the advent of the so-called dataism (organisms reduced to algorithms).

Time Adverbs proposes a sensory journey through different ways of addressing our current concept of time. More than a theoretical dissertation on the subject, the exhibition aims to bring together the artworks with narratives that propose a variety of reflections on our current perception of time. It opens spaces in order to imagine a future that explores alternative kinds of relationships. At the same time, the exhibition´s theme inherently implies a certain nostalgia for the unstoppable deterioration of the connection between the human experience of time and its narrative, and ultimately, for the ruins of all that is human, turned into the fossils of a possible future.

Time Adverbs, 2018, exhibition view, Centrocentro, Madrid; Nina Canell, Brief Syllable, Photo: Víctor Hugo Martín

Time Adverbs, 2018, exhibition view, Centrocentro, Madrid; Shana Moulton, Mindplace Thoughstream y My Life as an INFP, photo: Víctor Hugo Martín

Time Adverbs, 2018, exhibition view, Centrocentro, Madrid; Mia Goyette, Civil Twilight, photo: Víctor Hugo Martín

Time Adverbs, 2018, exhibition view, Centrocentro, Madrid; Marian Garrido, Caosmotropia 2 Rollingstart, photo: Víctor Hugo Martín

Time Adverbs, 2018, exhibition view, Centrocentro, Madrid; Melodie Mousset, Limits are only ornaments to your infinite goodness, photo: Jesús Varillas

Time Adverbs, 2018, exhibition view, Centrocentro, Madrid; Jacopo Miliani, Not with a bang, photo: Víctor Hugo Martín

Time Adverbs, 2018, exhibition view, Centrocentro, Madrid; Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue, photo Víctor Hugo Martín

Nina Canell, Brief Syllable (Combustible), 2016, High voltage cable, acrylic, concrete, Photograph by JJY Studio, Shanghai, Courtesy Barbara Wien Galerie and Daniel Marzona

Nina Canell, Brief Syllable (Oceanic), 2016, Sub-sea communication cable, acrylic, concrete, Photograph by JJY Studio, Shanghai, Courtesy Barbara Wien Galerie and Daniel Marzona

Serafín Álvarez, A Full Empty, 2018 (video still)

Regina de Miguel, Decepción, 2017, Vídeo HD, color, audio 28’ 19’’ HD video, colour, sound, 28’ 19’’, Original soundtrack: Lucrecia Dalt.

Laure Prouvost, Metal Man – Light Man, 2015, Vídeo (46 segundos) y escultura de metal Video (46 sec) and metal sculpture, 129 x 74 x 61 cm

Mia Goyette, Civil Twilight (1), 2017, Pigmented concrete, plaster, model station wagon, model LED street lamps, epoxy resin, wire mesh, dried flowers, florist’s wire, 51 x 43 x 50 cm

Jacopo Miliani, Not with a bang, 2015-2018, Instalación Installation, Mixed media, Courtesy Jacopo Miliani, Frutta Gallery, Rome and Studio Dabbeni, Lugano

Hanne Lippard, Exhibition view, Flesh, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2017

Nora Barón, Bam Bam Tchick! (detail), 2017, Photography: Sander van Wettum

Cécile B. Evans, How Happy a Thing can be, 2014, Courtesy the artist, Cécile B. Evans

Mélodie Mousset, Screenshot from HanaHana, 2017, Virtual Reality experience

Marian Garrido, Caosmotropia 2: Rolling start, 2018 (video still)

Rubén Grilo, To Whom it May Concern, 2016, Rigid plastic, PVC covers, cork, polyurethane resin on extruded polystyrene, polypropylene cord, adobe plastering, bales of straw and pallet

Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue, 2013, Video (color, sound), 13 min, Original music by Joakim, Voice by Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh, Text written in collaboration with Jacob Bromberg, Producer: kamel mennour, Paris; con el apoyo adicional de with the additional support of: Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin, Paris, Production: Silex Films, © ADAGP Camille Henrot, Courtesy the artist, Silex Films and kamel mennour, Paris