Yesterday Will Be Better : Taking Memory into the Future

Aargauer Kunsthaus

21 Aug – 7 Nov 2010

 

Marking its 2010 anniversary, the Aargauer Kunsthaus presents Yesterday Will Be Better – Taking Memory into the Future, a large group exhibition covering national and international art practices and focusing on interferences between different layers of time and the interface between past and future. The point of departure for the exhibition is a paradox: borrowed for the show’s title from the artist George Brecht, the prediction that “Yesterday will be better” gives a mind-bending twist to the old truism claiming that “everything was better in the past.” The pun invites us to reflect on events and, at least in the future, to furnish history with more meaning, to shape it more actively and with more of a vision. At the same time the assertion calls itself into question.

The rendering of reality by means of memories is reflected in the exhibition through various artistic strategies. Different modes of re-narration, re-construction or re-reading play an important role when tracing the arc between past and future.

The show Yesterday Will Be Better brings together exhibits that reflect different cultural identities. In varying and complex ways, works by 35 artists of different generationsand backgrounds raise the question why and how we remember and what the specific desires are that we develop. The works on view are mostly from the past ten years and include video and installation art, painting, photography and sculpture.

 

Artists

Lida Abdul (AF), Yael Bartana (IL), Muriel Baumgartner (CH), Manon Bellet (CH), Pierre Bismuth (F), George Brecht (USA), Hans Danuser (CH), Simon Dybbroe Møller (DK), Angus Fairhurst (UK), Mounir Fatmi (MA), Hans Peter Feldmann (D), Cyprien Gaillard (F), Douglas Gordon (UK), Stefan Gritsch (CH), Andres Lutz / Anders Guggisberg (CH), Mona Hatoum (UK), Alexander Heim (D), Pierre Huyghe (F), Susan Hiller (USA), huber.huber (CH), Jorge Macchi (ARG), Kris Martin (BE), Claudia und Julia Müller (CH), Oskar Muñoz (CO), Deimantas Narkevi?ius (LTU), Rivane Neuenschwander (BR), Uriel Orlow (CH), Lorna Simpson (USA), Fiona Tan (NL), Adam Thompson (UK), Carey Young (UK)

 

Aarau, August 2010