Futur Anterieur @ galerie du jour agnès b. – Paris

All your favorite retro-futuristic trends under one roof! Steampunk lovers rejoice! Opening last March “Futur Anterieur” is coming to an end in exactly 3 weeks time, so now it’s a good time to remember & remind you about the exhibition curated by Jean Francois Sanz.

20th century was never so future-prolific, not because of all our concepts, ideas & films about the coming centuries but because we were also capable of establishing retro-futuristic trends such as steampunk… to the point of accepting that most Victorians thought about the future like Miyazaki tends to showed us in his 80s & 90s films.

“Futur Anterieur” is one obliged Parisian visit before the end of the month. Structured around retrofuturism, steampunk and archeo-modernism – a concept developed by the academic, critic and curator Arnauld Pierre – the exhibition aims to create a dialogue between the past cultural output that imagined the future (our postmodern era) with works generated mainly between the last third of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

We’ve always been fascinated about our future trying to anticipate, question and sketch what “might or could be”, and each artist had their very own perspective and understanding of the ideal “avenir”. “Future Perfect” does a great job at opposing and comparing all those “retro-futuristic” sensibilities from quite a large number of international artists.

On top of that international approach the exhibition also includes the first French retrospective of the American magazine Retrofuturism, in the form of an installation designed by its originator, the artist and editor Lloyd Dunn. You certainly don’t have to dress up like the vernissage invitees, but please have a retro-future-ready attitude if visiting. More info this way.