The Hour as a Dream

Location: 250 Vesey Street, New York, NY 10281

This artwork is not open to the public

About the work

Pryde’s photographs of sumptuously draped Issey Miyake plissé fabrics conjure an enigmatic subject not pictured, evoking ideas around opulence, retail therapy, comfort, and self-presentation while eliding traditional strategies of portrait and advertising photography. The artist described the imagined subject of these images as “a creative lady, tough,” whose “clothes would be simple and easy to pack and not immediately readable as selected from a terribly recent collection by a famous designer. They would speak of fluid and open movement and, at the same time, suggest in their intricate cut and fold that life is a maelstrom of emotions, hidden, too complex ever fully to be comprehended.”

The Hour as a Dream, 2010

C-print

58 x 78 inches (148 x 199 cm) framed

Edition 1/3 + AP

About Josephine Pryde

Among the most influential photographers working today, Josephine Pryde (b. 1967, Ainwick, United Kingdom) references the history of photography and its conventions, such as publicity or advertising images, where seductive and highly staged, high resolution images evoke and respond to desire. In 2016, Pryde was nominated for the Turner Prize. In 2022, she was the subject of an expansive retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago. Other notable solo museum exhibitions include the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2015); Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2014); Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2012); Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Germany (2012); and Secession, Vienna, Austria (2004).