This book was created in conjunction with Walsh’s solo exhibition at Slewe Gallery in Amsterdam in autumn 2011. The exhibition went by the same title as the book, and included sixteen set-ups of both flat and three-dimensional elements that refer to the subject of time. These tableaus, according to the gallery, are both experiential and reflective. They were staged compositions or flat artworks on the wall that could only be seen straight-on through a screen chosen by the artist. These screens were intermediaries and often provided physical or visual adjustments to the work on the wall. Binoculars, sepia-toned paper, and a Jason hockey mask, among other things, are some examples of the variables introduced by the artist.

Walsh is aware and motivated by the unique possibilities the book allows. Each of the sixty pages is hand-numbered at the bottom. Several installation shots in Time Trials portray the tableaus at Slewe Gallery like a police line-up—context that requires interrogation. Walsh hand-labels certain objects in pencil, including a stopwatch laid flat on a shelf in the exhibition and a stereoscope used to view one of the compositions, as reminders of their three-dimensional presence despite the flatness of the page. Motion is indicated with hand-drawn arrows, while sound surges from a metronome with accent lines. The images fluctuate between illustrating the composite view one might have encountered interacting with the installation in Amsterdam, and the objects on the wall adjacent to respective lenses. Marker outlines and pencil markings add texture to some of the inkjet-printed pages. Paired quotations also grace many of the pages. The words originate from an Agnes Martin lecture given at Cornell University in 1972; Yogi Berra’s inspirational book of aphorisms and advice; and Josef Albers and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s respective manifestos on the language of color. Walsh actively makes the reader consider the lenses through which one views time, and how it’s sculpted per individual outlooks. The reader drifts through the symbols and motivations that inspire Walsh, both historically and culturally, as they drift through this unique rendering of the exhibition.