Exhibition Explores Lasting Records of Time Through Diverse Media

An exhibition titled 'This Is the Time. This Is the Record of the Time' addresses the challenge of preserving digital data in an era of ephemeral archives. Featuring nine artists based in Amsterdam or Lebanon, the show is part of SMBA's Global Collaborations programme and will travel to the American University of Beirut Art Gallery. Walid Sadek's 'What Job’s Wife Said' (2014) uses an X-ray of a generic painting to reactivate Lebanon's layered history of conflicts. Kristina Benjocki references Serbian history through carpets in 'Study of Focus' (2014), incorporating text and images from Yugoslavian books with pixel-like patterns and coffee stains. Rayyane Tabet's 'Waiting for a Manifestation: One Week' (2014) measures time with tally marks drawn over a week, covering walls and spaces. Sebastián Díaz Morales's video 'Pasajes IV' (2014) follows a woman walking through Patagonia's landscape, moving between past and present. Esmé Valk's video 'What Belongs to the Present' (2013) revives Ausdruckstanz, a German expressionist dance, in black and white. Priscila Fernandes's 'Tourists at the Distance' (2014) involves piercing and painting over photographic negatives, while Daniele Genadry translates landscape snapshots into neo-Impressionist paintings. The exhibition, noted for its coherence and variety, explores different methods of recording time across media, aiming for more lasting forms than digital storage. It was first reviewed in December 2014.