Viewing Velocities Time in Contemporary Art

Contemporary art and the culture of speed

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 through DIY performance pieces and exhibition-spanning installations, and others who are closer to the slow movement. Marcus Verhagen builds on the writing of theorists Jonathan Crary, Hartmut Rosa and Jacques Rancière to trace lines of insurgent art that cast struggles over history, memory and labour-time in novel and revealing lights.

Some of the most compelling contemporary art plays on distinct, often contradictory conceptions of time. From Danh Vo's relics to Moyra Davey's photographs of dust-laden belongings, from shows about waiting and interrupted sleep to Maria Eichhorn's art strike and Ruth Ewan's gigantic reconstruction of the French revolutionary calendar, what makes a good artistic countermotion to our market-driven, tech-supported culture of speed?

Marcus Verhagen is Senior Lecturer at the Sotheby's Institute of Art. He is the author of Flows and Counterflows: Globalisation in Contemporary Art and writes for Art Monthly and New Left Review. He lives in London.