03 Mar 2010

Anticipation Time at MoBY - Museums of Bat Yam, Israel

Deganit Berest, Jakup Ferri, Sofia Hultén, William Hunt, Oz Malul, Batsheva Ross, Orly Sever, Jordan Wolfson

Curator Leah Abir

'After all, our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.' (Honoré de Balzac)

'Anticipation Time' defines those critical moments between the end of an object's movement and its human perception. This temporal gap, which precedes the 'response time,' is filled up by sensory experience and awareness that anticipate movement, behavior and interpretation. 'Anticipation time' is a synthesis of past and future condensed into an enduring present. Based on past assumptions and a desire to foresee what is about to take place, it marks the crystallization of expectations.

This exhibition explores the concrete biological, physical, psychological and social aspects of 'anticipation time' – as well as the poetic potential of the terms – 'time' and 'anticipation.' 'Anticipation time' is present in this exhibition as an element underlying duration, while also expanding its limits. These works examine the various possibilities embodied in duration, such as continuity, succession, circuitousness and simultaneity. They stretch and shrink duration, expanding and condensing it. They are often born of continuums and repetitions, while opening up onto the abyss of absence. They perform actions related to counting and examine their failure. They explore various processes and missions and reveal them to be unfounded and absurd. They contain carefully constructed or awkward mechanisms, which generate the relationships and shape the influences and responses that arise in the gap between work and viewer.

The works included in this exhibition are displayed in a museum space, whose rules and conventions the viewer is required to respect. Yet these very same rules and conventions are ones that the artist is expected to repeatedly break or ignore – transgressing limits and disrupting the existing order. The museum space is one of detachment, withdrawal, contrivance and suspension. As such, it enables one to pay attention to the experience of duration as a subjective, fluid and changing concept, which is at times defined precisely by what extends beyond it.

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On Opening Night live performance by William Hunt, I never put my hope, In any other, But you.

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William Hunt's visit is supported by BIARTS, an initiative of the British Council and the Government of Israel's Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture and Sport. For more information visit www.britishcouncil.org/israel-arts-culture-bi-arts.