Future Perfect. The Future as It Will Have Been

23.08.2013 — 13.10.2013

Opening: August 22, 2013, 7 pm

The exhibition “Future Perfect” brought together works that deal with concepts about the future or speculations about the impending course of history. The title refers to a grammatical tense that allows future events to be formulated as having already occurred. Especially in the fields of politics and finance attempts are made to determine the future and establish how events “will have unfolded.” However, when the future is perceived as being predictable as the past, how can we ever depart from visionary, speculative, and habitual thought patterns? This is the starting point for the exhibition, which poses questions such as: How can we communicate with one another amidst the conjecture and assumptions of a future perfect? How can artistic practices point to future realms of thought and spheres of action?

“Future Perfect” is the most recent touring exhibition of ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), which is being presented at international museums on different continents and is pursuing questions of the future over several years at its various venues.

Participating artists: Nairy Baghramian, DAS INSTITUT (Kerstin Brätsch & Adele Röder), Mariana Castillo Deball, Cyprien Gaillard, Dani Gal , Annette Kelm, Jutta Koether, Armin Linke, Antje Majewski, Henrik Olesen, Yorgos Sapountzis, Nora Schultz, Nasan Tur, Danh Vo, Clemens von Wedemeyer

Kuratoren: Angelika Stepken, Philipp Ziegler

A catalogue in German and English was published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst with contributions by Jennifer Allen, Dirk Baecker, John Beeson, Patrizia Dander, Hans-Jürgen Hafner, Kito Nedo, Elke aus dem Moore, Susanne Pfeffer, Bert Rebhandl, Angelika Stepken, Joseph Vogel, Astrid Wege, Adnan Yıldız and Philipp Ziegler.

Film of the exhibition