In Search of Time, Eli Broad Art Museum, USA: Exhibition [Video and photographic installation]

In Search of Time (ISOT) was a curatorial project at the new Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, conceived by the international writer and curator Michael Rush of (‘Video Art’ 2007, ‘New Media in Art’ 2005 and ‘New Media in Late 20th-Century Art’, 1999). For the inaugural event, the museum commissioned six large-format, constructed photographs made as part of the on-going project: Fixity and Motion. This series of work was an exploration of suspended time in the context of digital interventions made by combining both found and authored images and manipulating them to the point of near dissolution. The series is both a critique and reinvention of portraiture in the context of mass consumer images: specifically, a subversion of portraiture conventions and the imagery of popular culture and examines: at what point do digital interventions negate the intent to represent or create a likeness? Can a portrait of ‘no one’ evince emotive reactions? How do we define modern dislocation? How do processes of intervention affect our perception of realism and what is its effect on the individual? The photographs made for ISOT were a culmination of several years of research and practice and work from this project has been shown in many curated shows dealing these overarching concerns including the The Herbert Johnson Museum, NY, the Rose Art Museum, MA, the Krannert Museum of Art, IL and more. Two works from this series have been acquired for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum’s permanent collection.

ISOT opened as part of a programme of high profile events and included thematic works by a number of artists including Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Damien Hirst and Mike Kelley. The exhibition was supported by lectures, educational initiatives, and public relations activity. The Broad Art Museum is a high profile institution, with a world-standard collection of art from across the globe.