White Room: Simon Martin

White Columns is proud to present the New York debut of the British artist Simon Martin. Martin’s ‘Wednesday Afternoon’ – which premiered to great acclaim at London’s Counter Gallery in March 2005 – is a twelve minute film in which an anonymous narrator gives an account of his days spent wandering through London’s museums. ‘Wednesday Afternoon’ posits a subjective enquiry into how we spend time and how we value that experience. As the narrator elucidates, “What I want to do is capture the magic of looking at people and things. I want to do this without disrupting what is there or altering anything that might happen … suspending conclusions and resolutions, keeping things open, somehow remaining critical.” Juxtaposing the historical figure of the flaneur (“a man of the crowd”) with the theatre and abundance of the museum ‘Wednesday Afternoon’ is a profound and poetic meditation on the acts of looking, thinking, and passing time.