Jim Hodges: It only takes a minute
Stephen Friedman Gallery is pleased to present ‘It only takes a minute’, a new UK solo exhibition by Jim Hodges. This is the American artist’s fourth exhibition at the gallery. Through materials, images, forms and gestures, reflecting on intimacy, history, values and casuality, Hodges invites an enquiry into our relationship to time, its measures, and meanings.
Extending through the gallery, composed of found materials, carved marble and oil painting, in varied ranges of scale and tonality, this new body of work resonates with whimsy, humility, foreboding and mystery to highlight themes of beauty, fragility and impermanence.
Rendered in white marble and painted bronze, the familiar, modest gathering of intimate belongings to be discovered in Craig’s closet have been captured in time. Even as they speak of the specific world, and the specific life in which these objects – clothing, keepsakes, closed forever containers – were brought together, they seem to now transcend their temporal materiality.
Of this work, Hodges writes: “For those of us with the good fortune to have a place to hang our things, a closet is a magical container, a collection of materials, arranged by each of us, that can, at a glance, reveal our cares, desires and even our deepest secrets. Within a closet time is frozen, and in what is kept there fragmented into contrasting visual and conceptual rhythms, meters and durations. Things accumulated and arranged, carefully stacked and aligned are juxtaposed with the quickly thrown down or casually abandoned to be taken care of later or simply forgotten. Out of this dense setting narratives blossom and come alive – looking in we’re reminded of who we are, where we’ve been, the hopes, treasures and dreams we hold. It’s there in boxes concealing our heart’s contours, scribbled messages on folded notes and cards, photos, records, files – all the stuff we’ve saved for reasons each item embodies, and all the choices made are there as well in this often hidden holding space, the closet.”
Images courtesy of Mark Blower.