Drinkwater’s ‘168 Hours’ exhibition reveals odd urgency of short-lived publications

“168 Hours” — an exhibition by Jennifer Drinkwater, Iowa State University assistant professor of art and visual culture — is on display July 1-31 in the South Gallery of the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, Alaska. A First Friday opening reception will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, July 8.

The exhibition features a series of embroidered covers of two of the most popular weekly magazines in the United States, Time and People. Drinkwater began her project in 2013, seeking to create an archive documenting the strange intensity and urgency of the carefully constructed covers in response to the short shelf life and extreme market competition these publications face. Covers of issues released the same day are juxtaposed, creating a broader documentation of our culture and inviting viewers to formulate their own perceptions.

In her artist’s statement, Drinkwater notes, “There are several interesting parallels between the form and content of these pieces. The stitch replaces the pixel, and in doing so, interrupts the seamless imagery to reveal each cover as an elaborate construction. The slow process of stitching is a meditation. The act itself soothes the melodrama of each cover, just as breaking down the image with thousands of stitches mediates the severity of the charade. The hours spent stitching each cover coincides with the hours each spends on the newsstand. These hours are simultaneously short and long.”

July 6, 2017 11:39 am

Tags: Exhibit