Christine Macel's 'Le temps pris' Examines Temporality in Contemporary Art

Christine Macel, a curator and art historian, has published 'Le temps pris' with Éditions Monografik. The book explores the treatment of time in contemporary art through twelve artists, including Raymond Hains (to whom the book is dedicated), Anri Sala, Philippe Parreno, Jan Mancuska, Michel François, and Roman Signer. Macel adopts a 'corporeal thought' approach, focusing on artworks she has personally experienced and installed. Each of the twelve chapters examines a different artist's engagement with temporality, ranging from process-based works to eternal instants or quests for immortality. Macel avoids unifying theoretical or critical frameworks, instead highlighting how artists like Philippe Parreno present a problematic return to the present, while Michel Blazy uses material to generate perpetual movement. The book argues that fragmentation has become the only way to approach unity in contemporary art. The publication was reviewed by Ida Soulard in artpress in July 2008.