The 59th Minute

ARTISTS

THOMAS STRUTH

For three years, The 59th Minute has offered the Times Square public an opportunity to encounter video art within the world’s most dazzling media capital. Creative Time and Panasonic proudly present a selection of Thomas Struth's Video Portraits (1996 - 2003) in conjunction with his mid-career retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas Struth.

In their American debut, Video Portraits showcase carefully selected subjects – an art dealer, an architect, a student, and Struth’s godson – gazing calmly at the camera, and, by extension, at us. His subjects sit before the camera for one hour, steady and unmoving except for the occasional blink of an eye. After their initial self-consciousness passes, Struth’s subjects sink into a fascinating meditative state. The hour before the camera reveals barely perceptible changes in mood and emotion, evidenced through shifting eyes or even a stifled yawn.

Struth’s restrained use of the medium brilliantly combines the stasis of painting with photography’s embrace of the fleeting. For his Times Square premiere, the artist has appropriately selected the final, 59th minute of each Video Portrait to calmly hover over the endless movement of this mediapolis. Reducing the entire vocabulary of art to its simplest premise – to look, to see, and to reflect – the videos invite discernment, receptivity, and calm consideration.

Video Portraits:
Thomas Gutt, Raphael Hartman,
Anna Grefe, Kim Heirston
February 4, 2003 - May 18, 2003