The work “ATTENTION” by Cuban artist Ernesto Leal reflects on the impossibility that occurs as the poetic statement of silencing. a silence product of the socio-political context that crosses it and determines it throughout its existence. It is a work that speaks to us of a time, delimited and shortened by the very impossibilities that Leal performatively activates and sublimates in the artwork, both in its reception process and in the projection itself, but also equating its passage (exact 8 hours) to the working hours of an art gallery, an institutionalized space within the cultural field inviting us to reflect on the reification of time in times of advanced capitalism. In specific terms, the work is a video installation that is projected in a dark room onto a white painted Plywood plate so that the English word “ATTENTION” runs in a direction that goes from right to left at a rate of about 45 minutes per letter, which is equivalent to 8 hours in total. As we said before, the time that this word takes in its projection is equivalent to the hours of a working day of an art gallery, but also to the working day determined by the labor laws in most Latin American countries; however, in this artwork, multiple lines of reflection can be documented. One, that generates a critical counterpoint on the processes of reception of contemporary art in the sense that, like in the current world, these experiences are led by consumption, immediate gratification, and anxious dispatch.

On the other hand, it implies valuing the idea of ​​impossibility itself (in general, no one or almost no one has the patience to spend eight hours of their time watching a word in English pass so slowly). Finally, think about the tensions generated between productive time and experimentation time because although it is true that there is free will over our temporal distribution, the time of sensible experiences is undermined within the framework of a temporary, alienating, and dehumanizing economy.