ARTIST STATEMENT

Time Flows Between Two Observers is both a contextualization of Catherine Opie’s photographic process and an interrogation of the photographic medium itself. In connection with Mountains Don’t Know Their Name, Opie’s solo exhibition, Time Flows Between Two Observers (on view in 309) seeks to strengthen the connection between viewer and photograph by creating an ontological and emotional awareness around Opie’s process in photographing the Norwegian landscape at this moment, in the trajectory of an unprecedented climate in both politics and nature.

Using a six-channel video and eight-channel audio surround installation, the 28 minute installation immerses the viewer in multiple time bases at once, and positions the viewer in Kunath’s POV on the three-week road trip taken together where Kunath observes Opie making the work for her exhibition. The expository segments from Opie played in time with Kunath’s synchronistic cinematic exploration of the surrounding landscape, brings the viewers into an entirely new film watching experience.

Opie’s invitation to be seen at work is a study in the dynamic of observation. As Kunath observes Opie’s creative process in real-time, in what ways does the documentation of Opie’s process alter the reality in which the work is made? Correlatively, how does Opie’s observation and documentation of the landscape alter its existence? And how does the meaning of the still image shift for a viewer, when taken together with the time that flowed between the decisive moments? The Fjordblasters: Norway 2025 [on view in the Reading Room] carries these ontological concerns into a point in the future by physically collapsing stills and time flows into single autonomous personal portable objects.