Alyson Shotz: A Moment in Time (Installation Spotlight)

Installed on the third floor of the Taubman Museum of Art near the Museum’s balcony overlook is A Moment in Time, a monumental yet delicate work inspiring meditative looking and metaphorical pondering.

Created by Brooklyn artist Alyson Shotz in 2005 and recently loaned to the Taubman by Virginia collectors George and Harmon Logan, the work consists of numerous clear glass beads suspended on long threads of monofilament hanging from a painted steel grid support.

Resembling a steady yet gentle rain shower fixed in time, A Moment in Time transforms subtly in evolving light, thereby evoking distant stars in space or floating holographic planes. The piece might even be said to suggest a measured pause within music, with its beads the notes marked on a staff and its strings those of an unplucked harp.

The artist’s A Moment in Time possesses affinity with two untitled works by Tara Donovan on view downstairs in the Museum’s theater lobby. In each case the artist modifies a classic minimalist shape (Shotz the grid and Donovan the cube) into a poetically organic presence through the structuring and repetition of small everyday items.