PRESS RELEASE Democracy
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PRESS RELEASE Democracy – art – publicness: the pilot project Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest consists of interventions, debates and actions throughout the whole of 2007. The project Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 creates a platform for transdisciplinary discussions and debates exploring how public art encourages a critical engagement with the structures of power which are dominant in the public sphere. Thus, public art in Bucharest will no longer be equivalent merely to monuments in the city’s squares, or to urban furniture and ornaments, but will become a measuring unit for the cultural and democratic state of society. For the pilot stage of the project, to take place in 2007, the following Romanian artists with international profile were invited: Mircea Cantor, Anetta Mona Chiøa in collaboration with Lucia Tkácˇová, Nicoleta Esinencu, H.arta, Daniel Knorr, Dan Perjovschi, and Lia Perjovschi. The artists’ projects confront the public with a series of contemporary themes relevant both from an international perspective and for a context in which the exercise of democracy has not been yet fully incorporated. The streets, squares and markets of the city, public and private institutions, public transportation, and mass media channels constitute settings for the artists’ interventions. Within the artists’ projects a central role is hold by a multifunctional project space, which will open in September, with a program of activities every day for one month. Structured to host hot issues of the present by inviting professionals from different fields to talk about them, the project space will be addressed not only to an audience with a cultural background, but also to young people, a casual street audience or people frequenting bars. Alongside discussions and workshops, a variety of activities will be staged, such as lectures, film projections, musical performances, club events. Hence, the project space will bring together a large spectrum of urban scenes in a unitary set. Public Art in Bucharest Bucharest is one of the fastest developing cities in Europe, however one where post-communism and globalization created specific tensions and eccentric juxtapositions in the architecture, urbanism or social life. The ways in which people in the city perceive, experiment and respond to these tensions define an active public space. The challenges of a city such as Bucharest, where unresolved issues of the recent past are back-dropped by the speed of capitalist expansion are to be acknowledged by the cultural discourse and analysed in open public debates. Bucharest needs to be recognized as a European cultural metropolis, and as such it needs those structures which can stimulate an exchange of ideas in tune with the contemporary international developments. The project Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 follows three objectives: 1. to support Bucharest’s synchronization with the evolution of contemporary art and to create awareness about the importance of the public space 2. on a medium term, the project aims at creating a self-sustained initiative regarding public art 3. over a longer period of time this self-sustained initiative allows a consistent realization of public art projects with continuity Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 offers different patterns that encourage the people to interact with society. The project needs to be continued, with the purpose of confronting the inhabitants of Bucharest with the city they live in, harnessing their determination to assume an active role in defining the public sphere, and of creating a cultural profile for the city. Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 is curated by Marius Babias and Sabine Hentzsch. Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 is a pilot project initiated by the partner institutions Goethe-Institut Bukarest, Institutul Cultural Român (ICR), and Allianz Kulturstiftung. The project is financially supported by the Cultural Programme of the German EU Presidency in 2007 provided by the German Foreign Office, and Erste Foundation. Also, the project is supported by the Order of Architects in Romania and by the Swiss Cultural Programme South-East Europe and Ukraine, a programme of SDC (Swiss Development Cooperation) and Pro Helvetia. The artist book series is published by IDEA Publishing House Cluj and Walther König Cologne. The project magazine is published in collaboration with Suplimentul de Culturæ. The project website is developed and run by E-cart.ro. PROJECT TIME-TABLE 20 April 2007 Conference and project launch at Biblioteca Centralæ Universitaræ Carol I – Galerie Galateca, Str. C. A. Rosetti, Nr. 2–6 April – May 2007 Daniel Knorr – artist-in-residence in Sinaia and Bucharest June 2007 Media intervention Anetta Mona Chiøa June 2007 Book launch Mircea Cantor, The Silence of the Lambs, Daniel Knorr, Carte de artist, and Dan Perjovschi, Postmodern Ex-communist, by Walther König Cologne at Documenta 12 Kassel and Skulptur Projekte Münster 07 July 2007 Theatre performance by Nicoleta Esinencu in the public space July 2007 Project website launch www.spatiul-public.ro July – September 2007 Nicoleta Esinencu – artist-in-residence in Bucharest End of August 2007 Project magazine in collaboration with Suplimentul de Culturæ 15 September 2007 Opening of the project space coordinated by H.arta, with a daily programme for one month (till October 15th) 15 September – 15 October 2007 Projects by the participating artists: Mircea Cantor, Anetta Mona Chiøa/Lucia Tkácˇová, Nicoleta Esinencu, Daniel Knorr, Dan Perjovschi, and Lia Perjovschi. ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES Mircea Cantor, born in 1977 in Oradea, lives and works in Paris. He works with video, installation, photography, sculpture or ready-mades, creating minimal and effective gestures through which he responds to the expectations and self-referential needs of museums and cultural institutions today. He has had solo shows in institutions such as Philadelphia Museum of Art, GAMeC, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo (2006), Centre Pompidou, Paris, Gulbenkian Fondation, Lisbon (2005) and he has participated in group exhibitions such as the Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla, Spain, 4th Berlin Biennial, Berlin (2006), The Need to Document, Kunsthaus Baselland, Universal Experience: Art, Life, and the Tourist’s Eye, Museum of Contemporray ASrt, Chicago (2005), Tirana Biennale 2, National Gallery of Arts, Tirana, 50th Venice Biennale (2003). In 2007 he has a solo show at FRAC Champagne Ardennes in France. Anetta Mona Chiøa, born in 1975 in Romania, and Lucia Tkácˇová, born in 1977 in Slovakia, live and work in Prague and Bratislava. They have worked mostly together since 2000, their projects being based on personal stories and on a play with the concept of access to different forms of power (professional, political, ideological and geographical). They react to the commoditization of art by intentionally disrupting the existing power structures and by trying to produce autonomous value zones. They have had solo shows such as Everything is Work, Tranzit.org, Bratislava, Ortografio de Potenco, Futura gallery, Prague, FAQ, Quartier 21, Museums Quartier, Vienna (2006), Nonstrategic Scenarios: The Red Library, Jeleni Gallery, Prague (2005), A Room of Their Own, Medium gallery, Bratislava (2003) and they have participated in international group exhibitions such as Marketenderin. Giveaways und Performances, Hartware MedienKunstVerein Dortmund, Young Visual Artists Award Winners 2006, The Kosova Art Gallery, Prishtina, My Love is Dead, Gallery Oel-Früh, Hamburg (2006), Prague Biennale 2, (2005). In 2007 they participate, among others, in the exhibitions Culture Clash, Bastard gallery, Oslo, and Partners in Crime, Gallery MC, New York. Nicoleta Esinencu, was born in 1978 in Chiøinæu. She studied theatre arts and stage design at the University of Fine Arts in Chiøinæu. In 2001 she wrote the play A øaptea kafanæ (The Seventh Café) with Mihai Fusu and Dumitru Crudu, and it was performed in the Republic of Moldova, Romania, and at the Biennale Bonn. Since 2002 she has been dramaturge at the “Eugène Ionesco” Theater in Chiøinæu. In 2003 and 2005 she received a scholarship to the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany, where she wrote the plays Fuck You, Eu.ro.Pa! and Zuckerfrei. Fuck You, Eu.ro.Pa! was performed in Chiøinæu, Galafli, Braøov, Bucharest, Moscow, and Nancy, among other places, and received the Romanian drama prize Dramacum 2. The publication of the play in the reader of the Romanian Pavilion of the 51st Venice Biennale (2005) caused political controversy in the Republic of Moldova and Romania. She has also published Le septième kafana (The Seventh Café, 2004). In 2006 she received a scholarship to the Couvent des Recollets, Paris. She participated in the Periferic 7 – International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Iaøi (2006) and in 2007 her plays will be performed on a tour from Stuttgart to Chiøinæu. H.arta group was founded in 2001 by Maria Crista, Anca Gyemant and Rodica Tache. They live and work in Timiøoara and Bucharest. H.arta has been so far active in two domains: on the one hand organizing exhibitions, meetings, debates, workshops in the H.arta Gallery, founded as a not-for-profit space, also in 2001, in Timiøoara, and on the other hand beginning a string of projects outside the gallery, for the realization of which the three artists most often request the involvement of other artists or students from Timiøoara and beyond. Among the projects carried out by H.arta: About art and the ways we look at the world, (Periferic 7 – International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Iaøi, 2006), How did you decide to become an artist? (IASPIS, Stockholm, 2005), Painting our way through culture (Prague Biennial 2, 2005), What would you do in my place in Vienna? (MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, 2003). In 2007 H.arta group has a KulturKontakt residency in Vienna. Daniel Knorr, born 1968 in Bucharest, lives and works in Berlin. The simultaneously elusive and interactive nature of his work challenges the esoteric nature of the typical gallery experience.