Future Perfect

Contemporary Art from Germany

‘Future Perfect’ does not mean a perfect future, but is rather the English equivalent of the German tense ‘Futur II’: a ‘completed’ future – something will have been ... The future perfect is a preview from the past and therefore speculation. The exhibition ‘Future Perfect’ shows works on the subject of the future and speculations about the course of history. Can we come, through conjecture and assumption, to an understanding of a future perfect? How do artists position themselves in handling material, form, imagination, action and narration? How do they reflect freshly on the past? Where do they see scope for action? Today the future is seen as a critical concept. Even the near future seems unpredictable because of digital and mobile acceleration. Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to think about the promise of the future.

The exhibition presents the positions of sixteen international artists living in Germany. They work in various media such as film, photography, sculpture, object, painting and collage. Common to all their works is that they translate central social questions into artistic concepts with the aim of designing future spaces of imagination and action. With works by Nairy Baghramian, Mariana Castillo Deball, Cyprien Gaillard, Dani Gal, DAS INSTITUT (Kerstin Brätsch and Adele Röder), Annette Kelm, Jutta Koether, Armin Linke, Antje Majewski, Henrik Olesen, Yorgos Sapountzis, Nora Schultz, Nasan Tur, Danh Vo and Clemens von Wedemeyer.

Curators

Angelika Stepken, Director of the Villa Romana, Florence
Philipp Ziegler, Head of the Curatorial Department, ZKM, Karlsruhe