The current exhibition Enacting Stillness at the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation in New York (until 13 January 2017) shows work by around 15 contemporary artists—including Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman and Claudia Joskowicz—whose time-based performances emphasise the value of remaining still as a form of resistance or protest. In her video projection, A Needle Woman (1999-2001), the artist Kimsooja draws a stark contrast between stillness and the whirlwind of motion in urban life as she stands or lies still in a meditative state in the fast-past streets of cities including New York, Delhi and Lagos. The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation even makes an appearance in the show in the form of its director, Sara Reisman. A video installation by Nicolás Dumit Estévez, For Art’s Sake (2005-07) documents the artist’s “pilgrimages” to various cultural institutions in New York, where he is “blessed” and supported by members of the art world—including Reisman, who says the work has a “devotional—almost religious—quality”.
