Bik Van der Pol
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Past Imperfect
Past Imperfect explores the relations between the radical output of the conceptual art of the '60s and '70s and everyday life, gradually moving on to include how radical ideas from the past are linked to those of today. In all corners of life politics, literature, intelligence, science radical actions, even if they seem to have disappeared in oblivion, influence and shape the public arena.

So far, Past Imperfect contains 82 cases, which are brought together in Casco Issues: PAST IMPERFECT (2005).
This publication, designed by Wil Holder, is the result of a research collaboration by Bik Van der Pol with Lisette Smits and Wil Holder - intensely guided by curiosity, amazement and suspicion, accepting the risk of being totally incomplete or overly thorough.

Past Imperfect searches for hidden pasts by lifting stones and poking underneath; collecting cases around notions on disappearance, perfection, excessive control, compulsion and withdrawal as varied as causal developments, state fiction and ambiguity, coincidental histories, preservation and
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Past Imperfect
destruction, dark politics, the haunting of artifacts and economical speculation, erasure, protection, the impossible made possible, and much more.

Some case studies are developed as a new work. An example of this is Case 39, made for Life, Once More - Forms of Reenactment in Contemporary Art , curated by Sven Lütticken, at Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
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