The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts has a new exhibit, and it is about time. The exhibit “A Month of Sundays: Art and the Persistence of Time” explores several aspects of time and its effects on our lives.
While the exhibit’s theme is pinned to a universal experience, Curator Jennifer Jankauskas reminds us that the essence of time remains relative.
"Time is something that's so personal to everyone; how we experience it. And really elusive. It's hard to pin down. So in thinking about the exhibition, we wanted to approach it from all sorts of different ways.”
Central to the exhibit is a sense of intentional pause, or "slow time." Works such as Richard Yarde’s "The Stoop" invite visitors to share a moment of rest amongst the hectic urban sprawl. George Segal’s "Woman on a Bench" may reflect to visitors a moment of respite following a long day of obligations.
"We very rarely take the time just to be, and I think being in a museum, this is something that we hope people do all the time, that they come in here and interact with the works on view, not just in this exhibition but throughout the museum, and put a pause on their life.”
Duration is another tenet of time emphasized within the space: the time it takes to both create art and to absorb the work as an audience. To that end, AMFA invited artist Tim Youd for a performance piece, part of his “100 Novels Project."
Youd is on a quest to retype 100 novels, live, on a single sheet composed of two layers of paper. He does this at a venue tied to the book's history, using the same typewriter model as the original author. The resulting piece is a diptych that Youd says mirrors both form and essence.
"They are formal drawings. They are time-based drawings. They're made over time in a very specific way, and I see them as perhaps a metaphor for what happens to our brains when we read closely. Like there's something biochemically that leaves a mark inside of us, you know, somewhere in our brain, on some cells that we can kind of conjure up, but we don't necessarily remember all the words.”
For Youd, it’s a meditative exercise. These are books he’s read and which have shaped his worldview in some way.
"I want to spend time with that book. That doesn't mean I have to love it. It might mean that I have some questions about it going into it, but I have to feel like it is a book that was written with the intention of wanting somebody to really read it close.”
For his time visiting Arkansas, Youd is retyping Charles Portis’ landmark Southern novel, ‘True Grit,’ both shaped by memory and the passage of time.
“True Grit is actually kind of a grim story that he allows us to experience by giving us plenty of deadpan, dry humor, that takes us through, sort of, this journey into Old Testament vengeance. And it is told, importantly, 30 years or so later by Mattie Ross when she is an older, middle-aged or late-middle-aged woman who's lived her life, a fairly solitary life, after this great adventure.”
"True Grit" will be his 87th retyped novel, and in the same way that his deliberate, slow reexaminations have reshaped his view of each story, the duration of the project has reshaped his view of life.
"I'm gonna die with books unread. You know, and that's a realization that's occurred to me over the course of my retyping. And so, as I've gone from starting in middle age, to now, where I am maybe almost at the beginning of older age, I value each retyping, I think, that much more because I want to see where I land on that book in my life, knowing that that might be the last time I get to touch it.”
Just beyond the meditative slowness of the introductory works, "Art and the persistence of time" faces us with the cruelty of time. Johnny Cash’s “The Mercy Seat" permeates the far side of the gallery, emanating from a work in Jefferson Pinder’s "Juke" series. Jankauskas details the video installation in which Sean, a Black man, lip syncs the song in its entirety.
"How it relates to this exhibition is, of course, that idea of waiting and marking your last days if you're incarcerated on death row," said Jankauskas. "Thinking about, you know, the mass incarceration of young Black men. And so, all of these things are wrapped up into this one piece that is incredibly powerful."
“A Month of Sundays: Art and the persistence of time” is nothing if not contemplative. The works on display evoke a sense of restfulness and nostalgia, as well as an appreciation of the time’s paradoxical impermanence and fleetingness. It is cosmic with a southern lilt. It only takes about an hour to take it all in, but Jankaukas says it may leave a lasting impression.
"Really appreciate what these artists are doing and maybe gain a new perspective, because they may present something in a way that we hadn't thought about before, that makes us take stock about how we're living our lives and engaging with time. And, you know, I just hope that everyone comes out and enjoys the exhibition.”
Artist Tim Youd will be at the museum for the remainder of the week. He plans to have ‘True Grit’ retyped by March 28.
On the whole, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts’ timely exhibit opened on February 19 and runs through September 6 — which, for anyone keeping count, gives you about a month of Sundays to check it out.
