Reflections on Time-Based Media Exhibition at UCL Art Museum

Published on UCL Art Museum blog website

Exhibition open 1 – 5pm Monday to Friday, until Friday 28th March

This exhibition gathers together some of the most prolific time-based work from UCL Art Museum’s growing collection, which centre around the dependence upon and manipulation of technology with respect to time. The artists exhibiting are graduates from the Slade School and have each been awarded the annual William Coldstream Memorial Prize that selects outstanding achievements over the whole academic year. This accounts for the diverse collections of artwork on display, illustrating the eclectic variety of contemporary time-based media works.

It is a refreshing and new type of exhibition for the UCL Art Museum, completely immersed in technology, conceptual installations and time-based media techniques. You will be greeted by many television screens that allow for a sense of unity to the works and for you to make comparisons between the way some of the themes are expressed. The screens are also placed with enough distance for each piece to be absorbed in contemplative isolation. Intriguing sounds also drift around the gallery, enticing you to follow your senses and discover and explore their source. 

A-wei A-wei with Art’s Borders

Published in The University of Warwick student newspaper, The Boar, in April 2013

The exciting modern ‘No Borders’ exhibition is an artistic intervention at the Bristol Museum. It critiques and challenges globalization, which many have said is a positive global phenomenon. Walking into this exhibition I was hit by predominately negative portrayals of globalization and the nature of borders from different cultural perspectives. Due to the many different mediums used – film, photography, paintings, sketches and even venetian blinds – it stimulated my senses, pushing me out of my comfort zone.

The great highlight was to finally have the opportunity to see artwork by the internationally acclaimed Ai Weiwei. Indeed, this is the first time his piece A Ton of Tea has appeared in the UK. Needless to say, he is one of the most famous current examples of an artist intertwining art and politics, and has made a big impact in the media both within art circles and in wider human rights debates. His life has even ‘become’ art due to Howard Brenton’s film about Weiwei’s arrest, which was premiered last week. This resurgence of Weiwei in the news (and within other art mediums) makes this exhibition all the more stimulating and pertinent. With Ai Weiwei, the boundaries between politics and art are definitely broken down.