Time Management Techniques

Sept 24, 2022–Jan 8, 2023

A slightly warped black and white image of a busy street with people walking along the sidewalk and cars in the intersection.
A slightly warped black and white image of a busy street with people walking along the sidewalk and cars in the intersection.

Darrel Ellis, Untitled (Street Scene), 1987. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm); image, 9 1/2 × 12 1/4 in. (24.1 × 31.1 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc. in memory of Jon D. Smith Jr. © Estate of Darrel Ellis

Time Management Techniques showcases photography by artists who examined the medium’s relationship to time between 1968 and 2019. Drawn from the Whitney’s permanent collection, the exhibition features many recent acquisitions alongside works that have never before been exhibited. Each of the artists, despite employing vastly different techniques, aesthetics, and conceptual frameworks, works against the immediacy often associated with photography to reflect a passage of time that is slowed down, expanded, or nonlinear.

Some artists employ a personal archive, reaching back into their individual and familial histories to challenge the linear way stories are often told. Others use photography for its self-referential properties, recording the duration and labor of making photographs and allowing the process to dictate the final form. Still others consider performance and photography together, using the camera to mark a moment and suggest countless more that remain uncaptured. By making works that reflect on varieties of duration, all of these artists reveal the slipperiness of time and articulate the artificial ways we attempt to divide, mark, and come to terms with its passing.

This exhibition is organized by Elisabeth Sherman, Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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Katherine Hubbard

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Katherine Hubbard fashioned ten identical plastic boxes, each designed to accommodate a sheet of 4 x 5-inch film. At the base of each box, she cast a cement support that held the film at increasingly steep angles, from zero to ninety degrees. After positioning the film in each box, Hubbard filled the containers with water she collected from New York Harbor and, using a large freezer in her studio darkroom, froze the water, encasing the film in a block of ice. Once the ice had formed, she exposed each sheet of film using the light from an enlarger. Hubbard then left the ice to thaw, which took up to an entire day to completely melt and reveal the exposed film. After the film dried, she sent it to a lab for processing into negatives that she used to create the final prints.

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 1 of 10, from the series Bend the rays more sharply…, 2016. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.6 × 50.5 cm); image, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee and Kristen Dickey and James Dooley 2020.135.1. © Katherine Hubbard

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 2 of 10 from the series Bend the rays more sharply…, 2016. Gelatin silver print, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.135.2. © Katherine Hubbard

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 3 of 10 from the series Bend the rays more sharply…, 2016. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.6 × 50.5 cm); image, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.135.3. © Katherine Hubbard

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 4 of 10 from the series Bend the rays more sharply…, 2016. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.6 × 50.5 cm); image, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.135.4. © Katherine Hubbard

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 5 of 10 from the series Bend the rays more sharply…, 2016. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.6 × 50.5 cm); image, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.135.5. © Katherine Hubbard

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 6 of 10 from the series Bend the rays more sharply…, 2016. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.6 × 50.5 cm); image, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.135.6. © Katherine Hubbard

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 7 of 10, from the series Bend the rays more sharply…, 2016. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.6 × 50.5 cm); image, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.135.7. © Katherine Hubbard

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 8 of 10 from the series Bend the rays more sharply…, 2016. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.6 × 50.5 cm); image, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.135.8. © Katherine Hubbard

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 9 of 10 from the series Bend the rays more sharply..., 2016. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.6 × 50.5 cm); image, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.135.9. © Katherine Hubbard

  • A photograph of ice crystals at close range.
    A photograph of ice crystals at close range.

    Katherine Hubbard, Bend the rays more sharply (Photographic print made from a negative embedded in ice at increments of ten degrees between zero and ninety.) No. 10 of 10 from the series Bend the rays more sharply…, 2016. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.6 × 50.5 cm); image, 8 × 10 1/4 in. (20.3 × 26 cm). Edition 4/5. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.135.10. © Katherine Hubbard

Artists

Essay

Still life photograph of various foods—including empty pistachio shells, root vegetables, bread loaves, and mushrooms—atop a gingham blanket.

Timeless Form

By Elisabeth Sherman, Assistant Curator

Read essay

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

View 115 works

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.