Khazar Mythology (excerpt)
Text and performance by Aaron Kahn / Rather Than Happiness
Premiere June 22, 2017
Calvert 22 Gallery, London, U.K.
A group show on writing and rewriting history
curated by Monika Lipsic at Calvert 22 Gallery, London, U.K.
Cavert 22 Foundations's new exhibition The Future is Certain; It’s the Past Which is Unpredictable will launch with a private view on Thursday 22 June, 6-9pm, at Calvert 22 Space in London, and run until 20 August 2017. Featuring nine artists and collectives, the show examines the ways in which history is written and rewritten, as well as the inevitability with which the past reasserts itself in the future.
The Future is Certain is part of Calvert 22 Foundation’s wider season marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution, entitled The Future Remains: Revisiting Revolution. The season of events launched in February of this year, and is being run in partnership with the State Hermitage Museum, the European University at St Petersburg and UCL SSEES and supported by the Vladimir Potanin Foundation
The opening will feature a tour by curator Monika Lipšic, a performance by participating collective Rather Than Happiness, and music throughout the evening selected by London-based artist Ulijona Odišarija.
A group show on writing and rewriting history at Calvert 22 Gallery, London, U.K.
“The future is certain”, according to an old Soviet joke. “It’s the past which is unpredictable.” This exhibition reflects on the ways history is written and the inevitability with which the past reasserts itself in the future. Bringing together works from nine artists and collectives, The Future is Certain is an economy of ideas and artworks as well as historical facts and records that refuse to disappear on their own.
The past is a force that needs work – cultural, social, political, psychological – otherwise it tends to reaffirm itself in the future. History itself is the central subject of the show: It is a research material, a source of imagery, a producer of revolutions, wars, inventions, and prophecies, and an object for thought.
In the exhibition, Lithuanian artist Deimantas Narkevičius rewinds history with his iconic video work Once in the XX Century. Filmmaker Jonas Mekas discusses politics, his experiences, his dreams, and his past life as a bumblebee with curator and cultural attaché Justė Kostikovaitė and London artist Johnston Sheard in a conversation titled On Life. American artist Emily Newman’s The New Chelyuskinites brings us back to a 1933 Soviet expedition of experienced Arctic explorers and unseasoned enthusiasts traversing the Northern Maritime Route in a conventional ship instead of an icebreaker.
Lithuanian filmmaker Emilija Škarnulytė captures a mermaid in a decommissioned NATO base in Arctic Norway, while Canadian artist Felix Kalmenson, in his installation Atlas, presents a messianic personification of time who speaks to an electronic clock designed to measure the cycle from 1988 to 2000.
Slavs and Tatars joins in on the Russian joke of the exhibition’s title with their Горы от Ума (Mountains of Wit). Rather Than Happiness further explores the Caucasus, researches the ancient Khazar people, and reflects on three Abrahamic religious discourses: Christian, Muslim and Jewish. Belarusian artist Jura Shust reflects on the concept of a noosphere, the sphere of consciousness and human thought. Finally, Juan Pablo Villegas presents an actual mirror, made by the artist from the silver of analogue film slides which once depicted ancient archeological sites, titled Moneda, after the Goddess of memory.
Curated by Monika Lipšic.