Future Perfect

Artists: Jeff Beekman, Gul Cagin, Peter Christenson, Ilknur Demirkoparan, Dani Dodge, Eloisa Guanlao, Kadir Kayserilioglu, Arzu Arda Kosar, Shanna Merola, Kasia Ozga, and Helen Shulkin

MinEastry of Postcollapse Art and Culture, in association with Durden and Ray Gallery, proudly presents Future Perfect, an international group exhibition curated by Vuslat D. Katsanis. Reflecting on the mediating role of human experience, this exhibition asks what hope does the future hold when the outcome is already known? What course of action is available when all options yield the same results? How can we position ourselves between the not-yet and the will-have-happened if no environmentally conscious actions are taken? Taking its cue from the grammatical rule of the future perfect verb form in the English language, this exhibition considers the temporality and tensions between failed world-making and hopeful anticipation. The future perfect form declares an event that is bound to happen before it happens, in an assured juxtaposition of the not-yet and the yet-to-come.

The exhibition presents work by 11 contemporary artists representing Turkiye, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, France, and United States, each relating to environmental disasters and the worsening climate crisis where the eventual outcome is both known and mitigable. The works focus on themes in failed ideological and techno-capital world-making, entering the tense space between sci-fi apocalypse and social realism to carve out glimmers for hope. The senses of loss, failure, collapse, and urgency in need of collective care is communicated well in the formal aesthetic qualities of the works. So too are the solidarities across cultural borders expressed through diverse media from photography, to sculpture, video, installation, and painting.