Properly Past

Curated by Olga Kopenkina

“This is a hole.  It always has been and still is.  But now it is a hole into the future.”
—Arkady and Boris Stugatsky, Roadside Picnic

Five Brooklyn-based artists examine obsolete phenomena, ideas, and forms which contain signs of a modernist utopian promise for a future. They navigate between modernity and history, seeking out the forms that artist and critic Mark Lewis described as “properly past,” or “properly historical.” Properly Past seeks to address the questions that Lewis evokes: Can the passage from the modern to the historic be represented without falling into nostalgia? What kind of knowledge can be derived from reflections of the historic in the present? In other words, is it possible to reveal the modernist potential of the past—can the potential of dreams still be realized—without abandoning the modern?

Artists Include

• Yevgeniy Fiks
• Pablo Helguera
• Lisa Kereszi
• Rey Akdogan
• Jesal Kapadia

Olga Kopenkina is the spring 2008 Lori Ledis Curatorial Fellow.  The Lori Ledis Emerging Curator Program fosters emerging curatorial talent in the field of contemporary art. Semi-annually, BRIC Rotunda Gallery dedicates the Project Space and full staff support to realizing the vision of an emerging curator selected through a call for nominees. The Award is supported by family, friends, and professional associates of Lori Ledis, a pioneering art dealer and music producer. More information

Image Credits: Pablo Helguera, 1848 Shaker meeting house, still from Watervliet, video, 2006. Lisa Kereszi, Black Hole, School, Governors Island, NY, 2003