Collection Exhibition
A Journey That Wasn't
Jun 30 - Feb 10, 2019

Overview

A Journey That Wasn’t  brings forth the rich array of artworks in the Broad collection that capture the passage of time by including artists who use devices such as rhythm, repetition, duration, artifice and appropriation to investigate and distort our perceptions, memories and emotions.”
—Joanne Heyler, Founding Director

A Journey That Wasn’t explores complex representations of time, and features the return of the beloved video installation, The Visitors, by Ragnar Kjartansson. The exhibition presents more than 20 artists including Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gregory Crewdson, Andreas Gursky, Elliott Hundley, Pierre Huyghe, Anselm Kiefer, Sherrie Levine, Glenn Ligon, Sharon Lockhart, Paul Pfeiffer and Ed Ruscha. 40 of the 55 works in the exhibition are on view for the first time at The Broad. Painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation will be brought together to examine the passage of time by alluding to nostalgia or sentiments about aging, often depicting specific places in states of decay. Others imply movement or narrative within single still images; in these works, historical styles and events are ruptured, collaged and recontextualized, like portals into seemingly other worlds.

A Journey That Wasn’t will be on view in The Broad’s first floor galleries through February 10, 2019 and is accessible with free general admission tickets.

Special thanks to Leading Partner

know before you go

A Journey That Wasn’t will be on view in The Broad’s first floor galleries through early February 2019 and is accessible with free general admission tickets.


From the curators

We all experience the effects of time passing—waiting in lines, keeping schedules, and, most intimately, aging. Yet time itself is a fragile concept. Using instruments of measurement, time is quantifiable; but it is also immaterial and unfixed. Time is often perceived through emotion, imagination, and the distortions of memory.

Presented through the lens of the Broad collection, A Journey That Wasn’t considers complex representations of time in contemporary art. Nuancing our assumptions about linear time, artists employ a variety of devices such as rhythm, repetition, duration, artifice, and appropriation. Some allude to nostalgia or sentiments about aging by depicting specific places in states of decay; these works can act as documentation, memorial, or symbol. Still others imply movement or narrative within single images; in these works, historical styles and events are ruptured, collaged, and recontextualized, like portals into other worlds.

Central to A Journey That Wasn’t are artists that present perceptual changes of time. One such artist is Pierre Huyghe, whose artwork serves as the title of this exhibition. Huyghe’s work captures the artist’s trip to Antarctica in search of an elusive albino penguin and his later restaging of the expedition as a performance in New York’s Central Park. Huyghe’s journey, both real and simulated, provides a baseline for time in this exhibition. The artworks in A Journey That Wasn’t share a sense of careful contemplation through such deconstructions. These works destabilize variables often assumed as given or constant, offering new modes to assemble meaning.

Highlighted Artwork

Ragnar Kjartansson
2012
nine channel HD video projection
Ed Ruscha
2007
acrylic on canvas, diptych
48 x 330 in. (121.92 x 838.2 cm)
Sharon Lockhart
2005
framed chromogenic print
45 1/2 x 36 3/4 in. (115.57 x 93.35 cm)
Sharon Lockhart
2005
three framed chromogenic prints
45 1/2 x 36 3/4 in. (115.57 x 93.35 cm)
Pierre Huyghe
2006
Super 16 mm film and HD video transferred to HD video, color, sound
Andreas Gursky
2007
chromogenic print mounted on Plexiglas in artist's frame
74 x 200 in. (187.96 x 508 cm)
Ron Mueck
1999-2000
mixed media
29 1/2 x 24 3/8 x 22 in. (74.9 x 61.9 x 55.9 cm)
Elliott Hundley
2011
wood, sound board, inkjet print on Kitakata, paper, pins, magnifying glass, photographs, plastic, metal
99 x 192 1/2 x 18 in. (251.46 x 488.95 x 45.72 cm)

Installation Images

54t5
Installation view featuring Azteca / Azteca in Decline, 2007, and Gilded, Marbled, and Foibled, 2011 – 2012 by Ed Ruscha. Art © Ed Ruscha. Photo by Coley Brown.
asdf
Installation view featuring Pine Flat Portrait Studio chromogenic prints by Sharon Lockhart. © Sharon Lockhart. Photo by Coley Brown.
sadf
Installation view featuring chromogenic prints from the F1 Boxenstopp series by Andreas Gursky. © Andreas Gursky/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo by Coley Brown.
dfg
Installation view featuring Blinded, 2009, and the high house low!, 2011, by Elliott Hundley. © Elliott Hundley. Photo by Coley Brown.
hyyhyh
Installation view featuring Death of Marxism, Women of All Lands Unite, 2013, by Goshka Macuga and Maginot, 1977 - 1993, by Anselm Kiefer. © Goshka Macuga, © Anselm Kiefer. Photo by Coley Brown.
err4334
Installation view featuring The Visitors, 2012, by Ragnar Kjartansson. © Ragnar Kjartansson. Photo by Coley Brown.

press

Please visit our Press page for press releases and to register for a newsroom account to access high res images of the exhibition and the museum.

find out more