Giorgio Agamben’s philosophical ideas offer a unique perspective on our relationship with time. His concept of “untimeliness” challenges conventional notions of progress, history, and contemporaneity. For Agamben, untimeliness is not a rejection of the present but a radical way of engaging with it.
In the context of our art exhibition, Agamben’s idea of untimeliness helps us understand how time intersects with artistic creation. Art has the potential to disrupt and reframe our experience of time. Our celebration of St. Francis Xavier’s birthday is an untimely event, one that challenges the dominant currents of our era.
Agamben borrows the term “untimely” from Friedrich Nietzsche, who described it as a resistance to the dominant currents of one’s time. For Agamben, untimeliness is a critical position, a way of being simultaneously within and outside one’s time.
In his essay “What Is the Contemporary?” Agamben writes, “The contemporary is he who firmly holds his gaze on his own time so as to perceive not its light, but rather its darkness.” This paradoxical stance suggests that to be truly contemporary, one must be untimely—capable of seeing what is obscured by the present moment.
Our art exhibition embodies this untimely spirit. The artworks on display challenge our aesthetic sense, opening our eyes to new horizons. They disrupt the flow of time in our lives, demanding us to choose between the celebrations and our daily routines.
Agamben’s idea of untimeliness resonates deeply in our age of rapid technological advancement. Our event-centric art exhibition is an untimely act, one that resists the tyranny of the now. The artists participating in the exhibition linger in the shadows of our Xavierian traditions, capturing the intimacies, extimacies, and ecstasies of Goans over the centuries.
Art, for Agamben, is not a mere reflection of its time but a force that interrupts and reconfigures it. In works like The Man Without Content, he argues that modern art has lost its traditional moorings, leaving it in a state of suspension. Yet, this loss is not a failure but an opportunity.
Art’s detachment from fixed purposes allows it to become a space of pure potentiality, where the past and present can collide in unexpected ways. Our exhibition embodies this idea, taking us out of the mundane flow of industrialized time and suspending it, leading us to reconsider its meaning outside the context of utility or progress.
The 33 artists participating in our exhibition embody the untimely spirit, using the past to fracture the homogeneity of the present, opening up new possibilities for thought and perception. Art, therefore, is never far from politics, carrying a subversive edge.
By dwelling in the interstices of time, art becomes a form of resistance, a way to imagine alternatives to the world as it is. Agamben’s notion of untimeliness invites us to rethink our relationship with time, and art emerges as a vital ally in this endeavor.
In a world that fetishizes speed and novelty, Agamben’s philosophy reminds us that to be truly contemporary is to be out of step, to linger where others rush past. Our art exhibition embodies this idea, staying in tune with the susegado culture of Goa.
Susegado is deeply anachronistic, a refusal to join the race. We see this resistance embodied in art, making it not just a product of time but a creator of it. This is why our art exhibition wishes to make history. Come and witness history in the making.
