Wards of Time

Wards of Time: Photographs of Antiquities by Larry Merrill includes a selection of images from an ongoing series by Rochester photographer Larry Merrill. In this work, Merrill directs our gaze, magnifying and abstracting the texture and tonal variations of ancient sculptures that signify the accrual of time. As part of the series, Merrill visited the Memorial Art Gallery’s collection and photographed 3rd century BCE miniature sculpted Egyptian heads, which will be on view adjacent to their photographs. Merrill’s photographs offer a reflection on time and decay, on the museum artifact, on history, and on our own mortality.