“Mayan Calendar predicts the end of the world; Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts plans ‘End of World’ Party”

 The nonprofit arts organization devoted to contemporary arts isn’t suggesting its members are putting much stock in the popular discussion that mathematicians in the pre-Columbian culture were able to calculate the impending end of the world. But they’re not going to let a good doomsday scenario go to waste, said Elizabeth Goddard, director of exhibitions and interpretations at UICA. “We’re definitely poking fun at the mass media and the fear of an apocalyptic scenario,” she said.

And on the odd chance the world doesn’t end anytime soon after Dec. 21, the exhibition of more than a dozen works by Gerard di Falco, Whitney Sage and others will run through Feb. 10, 2013. “Utopia/Dystopia” explores how contemporary society operates under a continual sense of fear with threats of tsunamis, earthquakes, tribal warfare and violent extremism all circulating through mass-produced imagery that perpetuates itself in a cultural landscape racked with apprehension.

This exhibition imagines our future geo-political landscape with optimism and utopian hope or with cynicism and dystopian fear. Take your pick. “Utopia/Dystopia” was planned months in advance by Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts’ Curatorial Board before the discussions emerged in popular culture. “They probably weren’t even thinking there would be a shift in Western world culture,” Goddard said. Once the end-of-the-world talk surfaced, organizers decided to bump up the exhibition at UICA’s Gallery on Fulton. “It’s a pretty wonderful exhibition,” Goddard said. “We’re just poking fun at the situation.”

Art will be on display throughout UICA’s four floors of gallery spaces, including several large-scale, multi-sensory installations, offering an opportunity to ponder relevant and pressing contemporary issues, such as the nearly insatiable quest for progress within Western Culture.

“Utopia/Dystopia” opens Dec. 21 with a free, opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m., followed by the “End of the World Party” from 8 to 11 p.m. The party features live music by local bands, Tokyo Morose and Haunted Leather, a cash bar, food, and palm reading and activities by practitioners of the esoteric arts. Admission is $4 for UICA members, $8 for non-members. “It’s a fun thing to do in the evening, whether it’s a date night or a get-the-girlfriends together,” Goddard said.

Centuries ago, Mayan astronomers kept a calendar that appears to end on Dec. 21, 2012, possibly suggesting the end of time. Most scholars now think the calendar simply is leaving one era and entering another. What’s more, Dec. 21, might not be the right date.