ABOUT
UPCOMING
EDITIONS
FROM 6 TO 9
Aesthetic Time
Xavier Aballí
Nov 21st - Jan 12th
The exhibition comprises two paintings from the series OK–XA, which welcome the viewer in the gallery’s entrance room, and 300 collages from the series La hora (The Hour), displayed in the main gallery space downstairs.
The two OK–XA paintings depict the opening and closing dates of the exhibition, in the style of the Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara, who passed away in 2014. Kawara’s method consisted of painting the date on which the work was executed in simple white lettering, set against a solid background, and famously, if he was unable to complete the painting on the day it was started, he would immediately destroy it. In contrast, Aballí’s ‘date paintings’ were executed prior to the date they depict, and 10 years after Kawara’s death, so no matter how real they might appear, they can neither pass for originals, nor be viewed as replicas.
So how should we categorise Aballí’s ‘Kawaras’, these copies without originals? Baudrillard might have called them simulacra, but as the name of the series, OK–XA (short for On Kawara–Xavier Aballí), suggests, it is perhaps more accurate to say that the paintings of both artists exist on a continuum (the two men’s initials being linked by a hyphen, a punctuation mark commonly used to either contrast values or illustrate a relationship). However we describe them, there is something profoundly touching in Aballí’s desire to form a bond with the work of an ‘unreachable’ (in both physical and economic terms) artist such as Kawara – to experience it first hand, live with it, learn from it, and share it with friends.
Serendipitously, there is a Kawara show taking place at the David Zwirner gallery, in London, which opens on the same night as this exhibition, the 21st of November, 2024 – or rather, NOV.21,2024 – an occasion that now frames the two ‘date painters’ together.
The main gallery space downstairs presents the series La Hora (The Hour), an installation of 300 collages in which images of watches taken from magazine advertisements are paired with selected phrases that evoke different aspects of time, creating an interplay between the commodification of time and its fluid, subjective nature.
Xavier Aballí coined the term ‘aesthetic hour’ to describe the specific way that watch hands are positioned in advertisements, which are almost always set to 10 minutes past 10 (with slight variations, ranging from eight to 13 minutes past). In these glossy images, time becomes an idealised concept – an ‘aesthetic hour’ – through its distillation into a carefully chosen moment, evoking a sense of perfection, stability and control: a time without history, without change – without consequence.
Underneath the isolated images of these watches, placed on blank sheets of paper, Aballí adds sentences, cut out from newspapers, that are imbued with a sense of time. Phrases such as ‘future furores’, ‘waiting game’, ‘writer’s block’, ‘after an affair’ and ‘while Britain burns’ complicate the idealised ‘aesthetic hour’ of the images by highlighting the myriad of ways that, as a society and as individuals, we relate to, or struggle against, the passage of time.
This juxtaposition creates a tension between control and flux, where the repeated visual motif of the specifically programmed watch commodifies and flattens time, while the fragmentary texts evoke a rich and multifarious experience of reality.
In the middle of the room, a vitrine displays four cardboard artist-made boxes, where the works will return when the exhibition ends. Following Kawara’s method, Aballí lines the interior of each custom-made box with a newspaper clipping from the same day as the one depicted in the painting. The empty box for the JAN.12,2025 painting links the present exhibition to the future.
This is Xavier Aballí’s first ever solo exhibition, despite his prolific production. The Catalan artist has devoted much of his career to teaching, offering fine art classes to students aged twelve to eighteen.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Under the Spell editions is releasing two special editions: an artist’s edition of 30 original works, each featuring a full-page watch advertisement with a time sentence affixed to it, and The Hour, a book that includes the 300 collages created specifically for the show. All proceeds from sales directly support the future programming of the art space.