Metropolitan Museum | New York
LIGHT OF TIME, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japanese and Chinese Galleries, New York
Temporary installation project of 26 Horizons displayed as museum scrolls in the context of the permanent collection, in 12 showcases
C-prints, measures variable
LIGHT OF TIME, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japanese and Chinese Galleries, New York
Temporary installation project of 26 Horizons displayed as museum scrolls in the context of the permanent collection, in 12 showcases
C-prints, measures variable
LIGHT OF TIME, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japanese and Chinese Galleries, New York
Temporary installation project of 26 Horizons displayed as museum scrolls in the context of the permanent collection, in 12 showcases
C-prints, measures variable
LIGHT OF TIME, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japanese and Chinese Galleries, New York
Temporary installation project of 26 Horizons displayed as museum scrolls in the context of the permanent collection, in 12 showcases
C-prints, measures variable
LIGHT OF TIME, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japanese and Chinese Galleries, New York
Temporary installation project of 26 Horizons displayed as museum scrolls in the context of the permanent collection, in 12 showcases
C-prints, measures variable
LIGHT OF TIME, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japanese and Chinese Galleries, New York
Temporary installation project of 26 Horizons displayed as museum scrolls in the context of the permanent collection, in 12 showcases
C-prints, measures variable
LIGHT OF TIME, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japanese and Chinese Galleries, New York
Temporary installation project of 26 Horizons displayed as museum scrolls in the context of the permanent collection, in 12 showcases
C-prints, measures variable
LIGHT OF TIME, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japanese and Chinese Galleries, New York
Temporary installation project of 26 Horizons displayed as museum scrolls in the context of the permanent collection, in 12 showcases
C-prints, measures variable
LIGHT OF TIME, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japanese and Chinese Galleries, New York
Temporary installation project of 26 Horizons displayed as museum scrolls in the context of the permanent collection, in 12 showcases
C-prints, measures variable
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
The installation Light of Time has been inspired by the Museum environments and particularly by the ancient hand scrolls presented in the Asian Art Galleries.
It consists of the display of Wolf’s Horizon Scrolls next to a selection of the Museum Scrolls, to create an active cultural dialogue between works rooted in multiple expressions of time.
The interaction of different generations of artifacts immersed in the quite atmosphere of the Galleries offers a meditative experience to the viewers, inviting them to explore the aesthetic and symbolic nature of the works.
The digital renderings enclosed intend to offer a visualization of how the Horizon Scrolls would appear if placed in some of the showcases of the Japanese and Chinese Galleries.
Their actual number, arrangement and positioning is flexible and open to further consideration.
The Horizon Scrolls are transcultural art works referencing Buddhist hands scrolls from ancient India, China and Japan and Torah scrolls from Jewish tradition.
These writings of light are essentially devoid of any narrative: unrolling them does not disclose a story. Like treasured objects preserved in precious cabinets or hung in pristine vertical showcases, these timeless visual texts invite us to contemplation of the whole at once, and to silence.
These new works spring from Wolf’s ongoing series titled Horizons: scriptures of light self-generated while loading the camera with film and inscribed on the photosensitive surface before it records the first picture. The subject matter of these pre-photographic images is no longer the outside world but the intimate relationship among light, time and matter, between language and chance.
Seemingly abstract, they challenge the very notion of objectivity as they are pure interpretation of light revealed by photographic means. Wolf’s Horizons are ultimate reductions to the roots of photography’s visual language, where the object and the image of the object are one. The Horizon Scrolls offer a material body and meditative presence to what might otherwise be ignored and discarded.
Silvio Wolf, 2014
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Works: Horizons