You’re Finally Awake!

Paige K. B.
Claude Closky
Graham Hamilton
Bradley Kronz
Spencer Lai
Lynn Hershman Leeson
Molly Rose Lieberman
Carlos Reyes
John Sandroni
Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven

Wow, you really hit your head on that cellar door coming in here. 2022? Still in a global pandemic? NFT? Y2K
jeans on Depop? What are you talking about???
At the end of each year since the new millennium, one, sometimes two, color(s) are chosen by a team of trend
forecasters at the headquarters of Pantone to reflect what is happening in global culture, and to “express what
people are looking for that color can hope to answer in the following year.” One of the two Colors of the Year for
2021 was vibrant yellow, or PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating. Remember all the yellow you saw everywhere?
More interesting perhaps than the occurrence or proclamation of a trend is its before-and-after, and the
relationship it holds to our perceptions of time. To trot alongside the zeitgeist, to obey the commands of the
colors of the year, is for many the baseline of cultural awareness. Anticipating the moment is an ephemeral power;
there is often a desperation to claiming primacy as stampedes thrash forward. Even the Dadaists recognized the
instability of the avant-garde. True power, I think, lies in the understanding that moments can evaporate into the
ether, or crystallize into funny little emblems. If I decided, in 2021, to show a bright yellow painting at the outset of
2022, it will be right on time, because I’ve already planned to do it, in that future and also belated present.
There is an art to being late (I should know) and a joy in mining new ideas or diverging from expectations of
timelines, both cultural and personal. To utilize the past to flourish on the present and twist the future is a
balancing act over the pits of derivation, a choreography of control and a manipulation of measurement. The way
we stretch and express time is a choice split by circumstances and reactions, records and recollections. You try a
new pen: what do you write? "A B C D. . ." or, "April is the cruelest month"?