TIME in SCULPTURE

Umberto Boccioni’s Futurist work, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913 was the first piece I thought of when starting our reading about the relevance of time in art. As I progressed through the chapter, I realized that the sculpture contains many of the artistic representations of time explained in our book. His innovative use of undulating forms to create the illusion of stopped action at a given moment in time is similar to sculptures eighty-seven years younger. Heide Fasnacht’s piece, Demo, 2000, deals with the same three aspects of time. The most obvious is the “(rapidly moving) time” in which the figure glides through space. Also present is the “(stopped) time of the artwork’s depiction; and third, the (much slower but still moving) time of the viewer’s experience walking around and looking at the artwork” (112-113).



This piece also “embodies time.” The careful rendering of bronze into a smooth massive object is proof of the laborious and time consuming task Boccioni underwent. The way in which the curvilinear forms trail the statue are similar to the illusions of movement in stop-action photographs (118-120). These forms also create a beautiful rhythm, another important aspect in the “time arts.” The figure appears to be suspended mid-stride. Instead of darting through the area practically unnoticed, it is frozen in time. The artist and viewer are able to slow down time and break down the figure shape by shape. “By altering the clocklike rhythm of time, an artist explores time much as a composer explores rhythm in music” (129). Though Boccioni’s work is not a contemporary piece of art and lacks the technological sophistication of its successors, I believe that the ways in which this sculpture represents time and movement are very similar to more modern pieces of "time art."

McDaniel, Craig, and Jean Robertson. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2010. 112-129.