The Future in Reverse at eastcontemporary / Milan

The Future in Reverse: Agata Ingarden and Agnieszka Polska

October 1 – November 1, 2020

eastcontemporary
Via Giuseppe Pecchio 3, 20131 Milan

I
am convinced that the future is lost somewhere in the dumps of the
non-historical past; it is in yesterday’s newspapers, in the jejune
advertisements of science-fiction movies, in the false mirror of our
rejected dreams. Time turns metaphors into things, and stacks them up
in cold rooms, or places them in the celestial playgrounds of the
suburbs.’
Robert
Smithson in
A
Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey

(1967)

We
live in a dystopian present, where the great luring promise of ‘the
future’ is dissolving, and we are being forced to adapt and change
repeatedly in condensed timeframes. In such a dynamically changing
world, our life is increasingly permeated by the feeling of
instability and uncertainty about tomorrow – a sensation, which
indeed constitutes our point of departure. Does the future exist?
Perhaps it is nothing but the spirit of what has already been? Or
maybe we are condemned to an eternal present? Human beings have
always been seeking to analyse, understand and name their indefinite
continued progress of existence, trying to eventually liberate
themselves from the notion of time, an act which would potentially
allow them to move beyond it. Time, a fluid concept, whose nature was
questioned and subjected to numerous interpretations across
centuries, becomes the matrix of the exhibition
The
Future in Reverse

holding together a diverse body of works by participating artists
Agata Ingarden and Agnieszka Polska.

The
Future in Reverse

inaugurates the activity of eastcontemporary – a Milan-based new
exhibition space dedicated to research, development and promotion of
Central and East European contemporary art and culture through
exhibitions, events, publications and partnerships. The exhibition is
part of
Odds
Against
Tomorrow,
a curatorial endeavour committed to exploring the concept of future
as a multi-layered narration about its possibilities and
impossibilities. The project is conceived as a spatio-temporal form
that is shaped over time through thematic exhibitions and a series of
meetings.
The
exhibition is accompanied by a text written by Attilia Fattori
Franchini and is produced thanks to the support of the Consulate
General of Poland in Milan and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.