“It must give birth to a world”: Temporality and creative leadership for artistic innovation

This chapter elaborates the notion of creative leadership in the context of artistic innovation, suggesting that while leading others remains important, what is essential in such a context is leading in time. Leading in time involves organizing temporal structures as well as continously addressing different depths of the past and future horizons. It is directed toward the attainment not only of creative work but also, particularly, of a creative world as a universe of novel signs and symbols. This creative world carries possibilities to influence both current and future generations of audiences and creators. The chapter draws on the case of artist Joan Miró who has been recognized among the greatest art innovators of the 20th century for establishing a novel visual language and esthetics. It distinguishes between two different enactments of Miró‘s creative leadership: time patterning and temporality work. Time patterning entails temporal organizing characterized by different tensions, whereas temporality work involves cultivating serendipity and surprise, extending events’ duration, stepping into new temporalities, and considering potentiality.