In art history, the term “undated” means that there is no information about the exact date and time when a work was created. In such cases, most often it refers to works created long ago. “ART without/with THE TIMES?” however, displays works of contemporary art that are “fit” to both send us back in time and look into the future. The exhibition is a study of the property of some artistic images and works to remain “con-temporary”, or, in other words, “WITH the times”, years after the date of their creation; works that, over time, have succeeded in synchronising their relevance both with the changing world and the notion of contemporaneity.
The selected works were created between 1979 and… 2027 – a time span deliberately extended, which does not coincide with the established principles of periodization of the artistic process. Without aiming at any historicity, hierarchy or chronological sequence, the exhibition deals with the idea of “sustainability” of certain topics, ideas, quality criteria, stylistic or visual language aspects in art. Paintings from the 1980s are included, in which the skilful artistry goes hand in hand with the tendency to conceptualise. The trend was not dominant for that decade, but it heralded the spirit of the beginning of the transition period, and it fits in with today’s processes. Other works that we consider to be “contemporary” in terms of content make a reference to the Antiquity or the Middle Ages – with their meanings, imagery or visual language. Being relevant and contemporary in full swing, they are much more than a document for the time in which they were created or exhibited for the first time. This is because their authors have avoided the transitional relevance. In addition, part of the works in the exhibition try to predict what will happen next in art and in life.
The very definition of “contemporary” has always been problematic for visual art – both because there is no consensus on the question when it started and because our idea of contemporaneity is changing. Distancing itself from both theorising and commenting on any terms and definitions, the exhibition is configured in space by creating links between the works, following the intuitive manner of curating known from recent decades.