In her first one woman show in Italy at the Galleria Francesca Kaufmann (previously she has shown in Italy only at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, for Guarene 2000) Kelly Nipper presents an attempt to photograph time. “60 minutes of hour glass sand” consists of sand contained in an hourglass, scattered by a ventilator. Time no longer exists as a measurement but as suspension, the sand is in the air ready to be diffused.

60 Minutes of Hour Glass Sand, Framed chromogenic print, 124.4 x 165.1 cm, Ed. 4

The work continues with timing exercises. The artist asked six people to close their eyes and open them only when they thought that ten minutes had passed; “Try and imagine time”. The hour totalled should correspond to the sand in the hourglass, to the attempt to measure the passing of time, liberating it from convention and perceiving it as an abstract unit of measurement.

The view is frontal and the event reduced to a total colour: white. The photography is cold, rigorous and aesthetic. The structure of the piece is rigid, as if the movement has been curbed or repeated, with the effect of confusing the image, transporting it into the dimension of a mood. The body and the objects become the focus of a thought, perhaps the thought which holds the sand in air.

Opium poppy, 2001 – 2002, framed chromogenic prints, 84,4 x110,4 cm, Ed.4

Opium poppy is, in its own way, another piece which deals with time. On a bright red surface Nipper photographs the stages of growth of an opium poppy. In a certain sense it creates a loss of lucidity, the slowing down, the scarce perception of reality, thought and language the state closest to the truth of time. It means – as practical convention – losing the western idea of perceiving it only as the succession of instants in which a course of events takes place, freeing it.

To photograph time like this, like space, the relationship which exists between bodies, things and places, the absence and presence, the pauses and movement, are for the artist a complete experience. Fields full of information to explore in many layers: physical, aesthetic, emotive and psychological.

Kelly Nipper: Photographing Time
Date: March 17th – April 14th, 2002
Place: Galleria Francesca Kaufmann
Address: Via dell’Orso 16, 20121 Milan
Tel: +39 (0)2 7209 4331
https://www.galleriafrancescakaufmann.com