Author(s): Marcus Verhagen

Art

Viewing Velocities explores a contemporary art scene caught in the gears of 24/7 capitalism. It looks at artists who embrace the high-octane experience economy and others who steer closer to the slow movement. Some of the most compelling artworks addressing the cadences of contemporary labour and leisure employ distinct, even contradictory conceptions of time.
From Danh Vo's relics to Moyra Davey's photographs of dust-covered belongings, from Roman Ondak's queuing performers and Susan Miller's outdoor sleepers to Maria Eichhorn's art strike and Ruth Ewan's giant reconstruction of the French revolutionary calendar, artists have drawn out aspects of the present temporal order that are familiar to the point of near invisibility, while outlining other, more liberating ways of conceiving, organising and experiencing time.
Marcus Verhagen builds on the work of theorists Jonathan Crary, Hartmut Rosa and Jacques Rancière to trace lines of insurgent art that recast struggles over time and history in novel and revealing terms.