The future before it happened

Outpost for Contemporary Art
exhibition at
The Glendale College Art Gallery
1500 N. Verdugo Rd
Glendale, CA 91208

This Is The Future Before It Happened
Jeff Cain, Krysten Cunningham, Tom Dale, Veaceslav Druta, Adam Frelin, Olexander Gnilitsky, Vlatka Horvat, Tim Hyde, Yuliya Kostereva + Yuriy Kruchak, Nebojsa Milikic, Maarten Vanden Eynde, and Angie Waller

This is the Future before it Happened concludes two years of artist residencies and exchanges sponsored by Outpost for Contemporary Art. Over half of the included artists are presenting new work developed during their residencies in Los Angeles or while on exchange in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Over the last two years, Outpost has worked with Eastern European artists who are challenging official histories, reclaiming forgotten pasts, evoking future possibilities, and asserting an aspiration and ability to affect positive social change in order to complicate the paths of progress claimed by their governments. Inspired by this critical stance, this exhibition plays with the fixity of time and how one moves through it. Rather than thinking of time as a linear progression, the title suggests an elliptical oscillation that allows mental projections from the present to the past and into the future in a start-and-stop dynamic.

[Text from an Outpost press release. Screen grab from Outpost's Web site.]

Connecting in Kyiv II

[follow-up to an earlier post on this remarkable project from Outpost]

Outpost for Contemporary Art
Los Angeles, California U.S.A.


Connecting in Kyiv II

In June 2007, Outpost sent U.S. artists Jeff Cain, Adam Frelin, and Angie Waller to Kyiv, where they presented their work and ideas at Kyiv’s Center for Contemporary Art. They also created new work in dialog with the Ukraine, and will share their resulting work and experiences with Outpost’s audience during this series of presentations, which will be held at Outpost for Contemporary Art's new community resource center in Highland Park at 6375 N. Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.]

Wednesday, November 28, 7pm
Jeff Cain (Los Angeles, CA) will present “ReConstructivists,” a work-in-progress that documents independent social organizations and enterprising individuals who exemplify Ukrainian ingenuity and a do-it-yourself spirit.

Thursday, December 6, 7pm
Angie Waller (New York, NY) went to Kyiv focused on the Orange Revolution, which was a jumping off point for her research. She will present documentation of the conversations and encounters she had with Ukrainians and discuss the work that is emerging from this experience.

Thursday, December 13, 7pm
Adam Frelin (Albany, NY) spent three weeks in Kyiv shooting a new video called "The Faction.” Adam will present and discuss the work, which was shot in various locations throughout Kyiv and had five members of a military marching band as its cast.

Outpost’s programming through 2009 will focus on Eastern Europe, bringing and sending artists, art works and curators to and from the region, to illuminate contemporary responses to the region’s complex challenges. Our program cycle started with Connecting in Kyiv. In turn, Ukrainian artists Lesja Zajac and Olexander Gnititsky will spend six weeks in Los Angeles beginning January 14, 2008.

[image from a google image search for "Kyiv" found on "Ukraine-Canada Policy and Trade Centre, Ottawa: Ukraine-Canada Relations, Ukraine Embassy in Canada" Web site. Caption: "Independence square (Maydan Nezalezhnosty) on the main Khreschatyk Boulevard in Kyiv - scene of parades and celebrations throughout the year."]