Future Past Perfect

Michael Ambron

Mary Jones

Rachel Klinghoffer

John O'Connor

Bayne Peterson

Curated by Lauren Comito

The Future Past Perfect indicates that an action will have been completed at some point in the future and simultaneously acknowledges that the action has already taken place. Future actions and forms are recontextualized versions of the past.

In Philip K. Dick’s novel “The Man in the High Castle” handmade clay pots become the most valuable relics of a paranoid, fractured culture; a way people could hold on to a trace of their remembered humanity. The artists in Future Past Perfect are similarly invested in the evocation of the earliest signifiers of our human imagination. It is through these hand-created images and objects that we haptically connect, and communicate an empathetic moment through space and time.

As our own technologically driven age becomes one of increasing environmental pressure and cultural fragmentation, volumes of cultural works describing the end of our species have been created, suggesting an apocalypse that is played out with endless variety and circumstances. Clearly this is something we can imagine. The insistence on materiality and the presence of physical form in these artists' work suggests a post-apocalyptic present.

This traveling exhibition originated at Projekt722 in Brooklyn, and has arrived for its debut in Los Angeles. The artists in this exhibition, currently live and work on the East Coast. These artists are tied together by their interest in exploring the historical progression of totemic forms and seek out new forms for the future. The metaphor of the artifact that these artists use can range from digital fabrication to ancient cave painting, haiku to personal artifacts; all reflect an unsentimental awareness of our circumstances, and consider the basic elements of what might and could be essential.