(London, UK)
“The phrase ‘lost to history’ never quite rings true: it imagines the past as some sort of black hole that time, with the world on its back, is being sucked into,” writes the artist/curator Dan Coopey in the introductory text to the group show “Amaranthine,” on view at Kupfer gallery since last Sunday, May 13th. “Rather, the opposite seems true, that the present is the great devourer of history, nothing ever disappearing but digested as memories and knowledge and prejudices and expectation and recognition and nostalgia and rejection and desire and more,” he concludes.
It is around this claim for the “ever-present” that the exhibition is built, featuring works by Pedro Wirz, Paulo Nimer Pjota, Ruairiadh O’Connel, Hannah Lees, Paulo Johnson and Maria Georgoula, asides from Coopey himself. Borrowing its title from Milton’s masterpiece “Paradise Lost” – ”Immortal Amarant, a Flower which once/ In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life/ Began to bloom, but soon for man’s offence/ To Heav’n remov’d where first it grew, there grows” –, “Amaranthine” discusses how past and future are engulfed in all things present. “Just forms co-mingling, each woven with stories, gestures and traditions; lost to the ever-present,” as defined by Coopey.
“Amaranthine”, group show featuring Dan Coopey, Hannah Lees, Paulo Johnson, Paulo Nimer Pjota, Pedro Wirz, Maria Georgoula and Ruairiadh O’Connel
Curated by Dan Coopey
On view from May 13th through June 12th
Kupfer
Arch 213 Ponsford Street
Working hours: wed–sat by appointment
contact@kupfer.co