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 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 (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 (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. Knorr tests the areas of public, private, natural and artificial space while examining the connections between artist, audience, and subject. He has had solo shows at the Studio Protokoll Cluj-Napoca (2006), New York gallery The Project (2002), the Serge Ziegler Galerie in Zurich (2001), Museum Folkwang Essen (2001) and Kunstforum Lenbachhaus, Munich (1994), and he represented Romania at the 51st Venice Biennale (2005). Past group exhibitions include Chocolates, Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2006), Ortsbegehung 11, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2005), 5th Cetinje Biennale, Cetinje, Montenegro (2004), Public Affairs at Kunsthaus Zürich (2002), Dream City, Kunstverein Munich (1999). In 2007 he is part of the Triennale für Kleinplastik, Fellbach.

Dan Perjovschi, born in 1961 in Sibiu, lives and works in Bucharest. He has won an international reputation with his drawings, which comment on current issues in politics, social life or culture. His drawings are realised directly on the walls or floors of institutions, in the public space or published as interventions in newspapers and magazines. He has had solo shows in many institutions in Europe and the US, such as: the Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, Portikus Frankfurt, La Caixa Forum Barcelona, Lombard Fried Projects New York, Moderna Museet Stockholm (2006), Ludwig Museum Cologne (2005). His participations in international group shows are numerous and include: The Vincent, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Normalization, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmo (2006), the 9th Istanbul Biennial, Buenos Dias Santiago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago de Chile (2005), Open City – Models for Use Kokerei Zollverein, Essen (2003). In 2007 he will have solo shows at MoMA New York and at the Nasher Museum of Art of the Duke University (with Lia Perjovschi), and he is participating in the 2nd Moscow Biennale and the .

Lia Perjovschi, born in 1961 in Sibiu, lives and works in Bucharest. In her work she is mainly concerned with gathering, analysing, systematising, sharing and mediating knowledge about contemporary art and culture. The informal institution which she set up in the 90s, the Contemporary Art Archive, today called Center for Art Analysis (CAA) is based in her studio in Bucharest and also travels abroad in the form of drawings-diagrams, installations, lectures and workshops. Recently she has had solo shows at Gallery Yujiro, London (2006), The Station, Zilina Slovakia (2004), Kunsthalle Göppingen (2003) and she has participated in many group shows, among which are: Tranzit, Kunstverein Frankfurt, Periferic 7 – International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Iaøi, Again for Tomorrow, Royal College of Art, London, Interrupted Histories, Moderna Galerija Ljubljana (2006), The New Europe. Culture of Mixing and Politics of Representation, Generali Foundation Vienna (2005). In 2007 she has a mid-career retrospective (together with Dan Perjovschi) at the Nasher Museum of Art of Duke University. CONFERENCE OUTLINE

Curated by Marius Babias and Sabine Hentzsch, Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 is a pilot project that creates throughout 2007 a trans-disciplinary discourse on art, architecture, urbanism, youth culture and education, in society and the public sphere. The project is aiming at confronting the audience with social developments, initiating public debates and emphasising the cultural contribution to the development of democracy. The following artists are part of the first stage of the project: Mircea Cantor, Anetta Mona Chiøa/Lucia Tkácˇová, Nicoleta Esinencu, H.arta, Daniel Knorr, Dan Perjovschi, and Lia Perjovschi.

Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 opens on the 20th of April 2007 with an international conference which brings together theoreticians and practitioners of art in public space, representatives of institutions which are supporting public art initiatives, as well as key figures of the cultural and public life of Bucharest. The conference will contextualize and exemplify the discourse on the public sphere and the way this is reflecting the state of the city and of society in general. The notion of “public space” and its role in Western democracies has been essential for the theory of society since the 1960s, being defined as a forum for the staging of conflicts in society. Today, in the process of globalization and of aggressive capitalist society reducing the role of art to adornment, public art is proposed as a model of critical engagement with political and social issues.

The non-existence of a free public sphere in Romania during communism created not only a vacuum of understanding on this subject, but also the place for the post-communist untamed capitalism to acquire a monopoly on the public space. From an object of ideology and an instrument in the service of political power, to the object of entertainment, there seems to be little space left, in such a context, for public art to exercise a critical discourse. The participants at the Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 conference will address these issues and propose models for or solutions to the activation of a democratic public sphere through public art and cultural production.

The conference has two parts: during the first part theoretician and curator Marius Babias will introduce the project and the conference topics and the artist Olaf Metzel will present a selection of his public art projects realized in the last 20 years. Also, Timotei Nædæøan will present the artists’ books series COLECfiIA PUBLIC, initiated within the project Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007. During the second part of the conference, Sabine Hentzsch, director of the Goethe-Institut Bukarest, will moderate a round table for which the participants are: Marlis Drevermann, director of the cultural affairs department of the city of Wuppertal, Horia-Roman Patapievici, president of Institutul Cultural Român, Øerban Sturdza, president of the Order of Architects in Romania, Michael M. Thoss, director of Allianz Kulturstiftung and Adriean Videanu, mayor of Bucharest. CONFERENCE TIME-TABLE

16.00 Sabine Hentzsch Opening Address 16.15 Marius Babias Introduction to the conference and the project Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 16.45 Olaf Metzel Lecture on public space and politics. Moderated by Marius Babias 17.30 Timotei Nædæøan Presentation of the artists’ books series COLECfiIA PUBLIC

17.45 Break

18.00 Panel discussion – moderated by Sabine Hentzsch Marlis Drevermann, sociologist and cultural representative of the city of Wuppertal Horia-Roman Patapievici, president of Institutul Cultural Român Øerban Sturdza, president of the Order of Architects in Romania Michael M. Thoss, director of Allianz Kulturstiftung Adriean Videanu, mayor of Bucharest

The conference takes place on the 20th of April 2007 at Biblioteca Centralæ Universitaræ Carol I – Galeria „Galateca", str. C. A. Rosetti nr. 2–6, Bucureøti CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS

Marius Babias, born in 1962 in Romania, studied literature and political science at the Free University in Berlin. He lives and works as a curator and arts theorist in Berlin. He teaches art and film theory at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2006 he was co-curator of Periferic 7 – International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Iaøi (Romania) and of Check-In Europe, at the European Patent Office, Munich. In 2005 he was the commissioner of the Romanian Pavilion at 51st Venice Biennale and has curated the exhibitions The New Europe, Generali Foundation, Vienna, and Formats for Action, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin. In 2001–2003 he was artistic co-director at the Kokerei Zollverein | Zeitgenössische Kunst und Kritik in Essen. During the period1997–2001 Babias was visiting professor at the Städelschule Academy in Frankfurt/M., at the University of Arts Linz and at the Center for Contemporary Art Kitakyushu, Japan. In 1996 he received the Carl Einstein Prize for Art Criticism. Babias is the author of Herbstnacht (Berlin 1989), Ich war dabei, als ... Interviews 1990–2000 (Frankfurt/M. 2001), Ware Subjektivität, Munich 2002 (Subiectivitatea marfa, IDEA, Cluj, 2004) and Berlin. Die Spur der Revolte, Cologne 2006 (Urma revoltei, IDEA, Cluj, 2006). Babias is co-curator (with Sabine Hentzsch) of the project Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007.

Marlis Drevermann, born in 1952 in Bochum, studied sociology at the Ruhr-University in Bochum. In the period 1977-1982 she worked as an academic at the Department for Building, City and Regional planning at the Ruhr-University Bochum. In 1985 she entered the field of the public space and she worked for a year as an academic at the Institute for Land and City Planning of the Region of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Since 1986 she occupied different positions at the department for Urban Development within the Ministry for Work, Social and Urban Development, Culture and Sport, of the Region of Nordrhein- Westfalen. Since 2000 she has been Director of the department for Culture, Education and Sport in the city of Wuppertal.

Sabine Hentzsch, born in 1959 in Bochum, studied sociology and worked as a sociologist till 1989, when she started to work with the Goethe-Institut. After working for the Goethe-Institut in Germany, she received postings abroad as follows: 1995–2000 Director of the Goethe-Institut Accra/Ghana; 2000–2004 Director of the Goethe-Institut Rotterdam/Netherlands. She was awarded the silver Erasmus-needle of the city of Rotterdam for her contributions to German- Dutch cultural exchange. Since September 2004 she is director of the Goethe-Institut Bukarest. She is co-curator (with Marius Babias) of the project Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007.

Olaf Metzel, born in 1952 in Berlin, is based in Munich. He studied at the Berlin Academy of the Arts. He had his first solo exhibition in West Berlin in 1982 and participated in major exhibitions such as Documenta VIII (1987), Skulpturprojekte Münster (1987, 1997), Sydney Biennale (1990), Istanbul Biennale (1995), São Paolo Biennale (2002). His outdoor works are among the most important produced by contemporary German artists. His principal materials include concrete, metal and plastic, as well as mass-produced everyday objects. Since 1990, Metzel has been professor at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts; from 1995 to 1999, he also served as Chancellor at the same academy. He is the recipient of Arnold-Bode-Preis 1994 and Darmstädter Kunstpreis 1996.

Timotei Nædæøan, born in 1958 in Mureø County, lives and works in Cluj. He studied at the Visual Arts Academy in Cluj (1983–1988). Between 1977 and 2000 he participated in numerous exhibitions and artistic events around the world, such as : International Biennale of Graphic Design, Brno (1986–2000), International Print Biennale, Ljubljana (1987), International Drawing Triennale, Wroclaw (1988), 2nd International Poster Triennale, Toyama (1988), The Colorado International Poster Exhibition, Fort Collins (1997,1991), Art as activist, Revolutionary Posters from Central and Eastern Europe, Smithsonian Institution, Washington (1992). He is founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine IDEA art + society (former Balkon) and director of IDEA Publishing House and IDEA Foundation, Cluj.

Horia-Roman Patapievici was born in 1957 in Bucharest. He studied physics, has been scientific researcher (1986–1990), university lecturer (1990–1994), a member in the National Council Assembly for the study of the archives of the secret police/CNSAS (2000–2005), and he has been the President of the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) since 2005. He is a private researcher into the history of ideas. Since 2002 he has been the author of the TV show Idei in libertate (Ideas under freedom, TVR Cultural), until 2005, and Înapoi la argument (Back to the argument, TVR Cultural) since 2005 until the present. He has been the director of the magazine ID – Idei in Dialog (Ideas in Dialogue) since 2004. He is a member of the Group for Social Dialogue (GDS), of the Union of Writers in Romania (US) and a founding member of the Group for the Research of the European Modernity’s Foundations (initiated by the University of Bucharest and the New Europe College). Horia Patapievici has published, among others, Zbor în bætaia sægeflii. Eseu asupra formærii, Bucharest, Humanitas, 1995 (Flying against the Arrow. An Intellectual in Ceauøescu’s Romania, Budapest, New York: Central European University Press, 2003), Politice, Humanitas, 1996; Omul recent, Humanitas, 2001 (El Hombre reciente, Madrid: Áltera, 2005), Discernæmântul modernitæflii, Humanitas, 2004.

Øerban Sturdza, born in 1947 in Timiøoara, lives and works in Bucharest. He studied at the Institute of Architecture “Ion Mincu” in Bucharest, and he has professional experience in architectural design and renovation of cultural sites, furniture and interior design, as well as a sustained teaching activity (Art High-school Timiøoara, Architecture University, Timiøoara). Øerban Sturdza was in charge of the Department of Urbanism IPROTIM Timiøoara (1990–1993), he participated in numerous exhibitions, national and international competitions of architecture and design (1st place at the National Biennial of Architecture Bucharest, Section Restoration, 2006, 1st prize at the Contest of architectural design CEC, 1999) and he was part of judging panels for many national and international competitions between 1990–2007. He is a member, among others, of the Arhiterra group and of Pro Patrimonio Association, and he is specifically interested in urban and building rehabilitation, restoration of historical monuments, landscape architecture and the public space. Since 2002 he has been the President of the Order of Architects in Romania.

Michael M. Thoss, born in 1955 in the former GDR, studied cultural sciences in Bonn, Barcelona, Paris and graduated with a master’s degree and diplomas in literature and theatre studies at the Sorbonne as well as passing the state examination in Romance Language and Literature, Hispanic studies and philosophy at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn. Up until September 2004 he directed the forum of the Goethe-Institut, bringing outstanding projects to Germany from Goethe Institutes and their partner organizations throughout the world. Prior to this, he worked at the Berlin House of World Cultures, where he was in charge of Visual Arts, Film and New Media. From 1992 until 1998 he worked as arts coordinator for the Goethe-Institut in France. In October 2004 Mr. Thoss took up the position of Managing Director of the Allianz Kulturstiftung in Munich.

Adriean Videanu, born in 1962 in Teleorman county, lives and works in Bucharest. He graduated in 1987 from the Faculty of Transport, Polytechnic Institute, Bucharest and he worked as an engineer on different positions at the General Office for Oil Special Constructions – Department for Road Motor Vehicles Videle in the period 1987–1994. He has been a member of the Democrat Party since 1990. He has been Vice-President of the Democrat Party, Public Relations Executive and Spokesperson – in 2001 and 2003, and between December 2004 – March 2005 he was a State Minister and Deputy Premier in the Tæriceanu government. He has been General Mayor of Bucharest Municipality since April 2005. ARTISTS’ BOOKS

Edited by Marius Babias and Sabine Hentzsch The artists’ books series is published by IDEA Publishing House Cluj and Walther König Cologne, 2007.

Mircea Cantor, The Silence of the Lambs / Tæcerea mieilor, ca. 100 pages, English-Romanian edition, ISBN 978-973-7913-61-6 (IDEA), ISBN 978-3-86560-235-0 (Walther König)

Anetta Mona Chiøa/Lucia Tkácˇová, Dialectics of Subjection, DVD with Booklet, German-Romanian edition, ISBN 978-973-7913-65-4 (IDEA), ISBN 978-3-86560-236-7 (Walther König)

Nicoleta Esinencu, A(II)Rh+, ca. 120 pages, German-Romanian edition, ISBN 978-973-7913-62-3 (IDEA), ISBN 978-3-86560-237-4 (Walther König)

H.arta, AGENDA 2008, ca. 200 pages, German-Romanian edition, ISBN 978-973-7913-63-0 (IDEA), ISBN 978-3-86560-238-1 (Walther König)

Daniel Knorr, Carte de Artist, ca. 200 pages, German-Romanian edition, ISBN 978-973-7913-60-9 (IDEA), ISBN 978-3-86560-239-8 (Walther König)

Dan Perjovschi, Postmodern Ex-communist, 96 pages, German-English-Romanian edition, ISBN 978-973-7913-59-3 (IDEA), ISBN 978-3-86560-240-4 (Walther König)

Lia Perjovschi, CAA Inventar / CAA Inventory, ca. 120 pages, German-Romanian edition, ISBN 978-973-7913-64-7 (IDEA), ISBN 978-3-86560-241-1 (Walther König) THE IDEA PLATFORM

The concept: Allegiance to the exigency of genuine theory – a theory which is, first of all, its own practice – this is the program of IDEA arts+society magazine. This means: the practice of the concerned eye, which can be rigorous solely through the unconditional solidarity with the concrete. It is a practice of thinking which is alien to any aestheticism, hostile to any institutionalized transcendence, immune to the biased fiction of ideological neutrality, and remote from the pernicious language of our contemporary culture of ‘experts.’ In brief, it is the practice of critical and defiant reflection, dramatically lacking in the intellectual-civic debates of present-day Romania.

IDEA arts + society magazine: The graphical and logical operator ‘+’ functions as the material figura of all these dimensions, to which we can add artistic education and the public influence of art. The various ways of deciphering this sign suggest the manifold articulations between the artistic and the social realm. That is, the political.

More or less constant in its column structure and appearing three times a year, each issue of the magazine presents events and institutions relevant to the local and international artistic scene, as well as individual or group projects of various Romanian or international artists, some of them conceived especially for IDEA. The presence of contemporary art in all of these ways is framed by a substantial theoretical background, which consists of archives of (already classic) contemporary texts in art theory, and of thematic dossiers dedicated to strategically important social-political topics.

The publishing house: The IDEA publishing house extends and deepens this theoretical and practical project. Committed to publishing texts as implements of reflection upon the artistic, the social, and the political, the editorial staff started with a minum set of clear goals: the translation into Romanian of major texts of contemporary philosophy and recent theory of art. By this, IDEA aims to insert into the Romanian public debates interrogations which are exemplary for the world we live in. However, this means more than ‘importing’ certain ‘ideas.’ By promoting a certain type of writing – that in which the language experimentally but rigorously explores its logical and expressive resources – the publishing house intends to refresh, by the very gesture of translation or through original texts, the critical (i.e. philosophical) idiom of Romanian. In other words, to orient our possibilities of thinking toward the criticality of what happens to us today.

Accepting its condition as a small, non-commercial publishing house, IDEA has, since 2001, run two series – Balcon and Panopticon. Providing important guiding marks for mapping the realm of modern and contemporary arts, the first series includes such authors as Benjamin, Barthes, de Duve, Flusser, Groys, Babias, Lovink, Lacoue-Labarthe or materials on the work of artists such as Joseph Beuys. For the first time in the Romanian public space, contemporary art theory is brought along in a coherent and meaningful fashion. In this way, the elucidative and analytical potential of art theory provides a conceptual toolbox useful for both theorists and artists.

In the second series, by publishing thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard, J.-L. Nancy, G. Granel, Sloterdijk, Baudrillard, G. M. Tamás, Agamben, Arendt, we would like not only to connect the reader to the “avant-garde” of contemporary philosophical thought, but also to provide the public with major readings of questions burdening our contemporary societies: power and the political, the predicaments of representation and historicity, the fall of communism, the crisis of academia, globalization, (post)modernity, nihilism, etc.

Last, but not least, with its recent series the publishing house has also committed itself to the production of applied critical discourses, taking as its starting point the present political situations and intellectual contexts – a simultaneously global and local theoretical endeavour. These new collections, consisting of books still in preparation, will operate under titles such as Refracflii [refractions] – dedicated to cultural and socio-political analyses in situ; Praxis – dealing with the exploration of the concrete strategies of progressive political struggle all over the world; and, finally, Public – covering the various modalities of artistic-democratic self-production of public space in Romania.

www.ideamagazine.ro www.ideaeditura.ro E-cart.ro

The contemporary art magazine e-cart was founded in 2003 as an independent initiative aiming at offering a free resource on contemporary art in Romania as well as presenting artistic projects in a broader, regional and international context, and encouraging young critics’ and artists’ writing about art. Published exclusively on the Internet (www.e-cart.ro), the magazine can be accessed in a bilingual version, Romanian and English, and all issues are kept online.

In 2005, e-cart’s editorial team founded the NGO E-cart.ro, with the purpose of extending the range of projects developed, continuing to publish the magazine, realizing websites for other projects, printing publications and organizing projects with an educational aim. E-cart.ro supports the independent art scene in Romania, encourages the creation of networks and long-term partnerships, focusing on collaboration as a means to strengthen the non-profit contemporary art structures in a country where sustained institutional support is still missing. While carrying on projects like case-studies on art education, organising research trips for professionals or gathering and disseminating information on young artists from Romania and the region, E-cart.ro finds as one of its key missions the constitution of free online resources, which should make information available for a broad audience.

The websites developed by E-cart.ro do not aim at applying sophisticated designs but at highlighting the content, offering both quality images and text, thus creating a tool for the access of contemporary art. For some of these websites, such as Map of e-cart, presented at the 10th International Computer Art Festival, Maribor, Slovenia in 2004, or UK Curators’ trip, realized as a conclusion of a research trip for a group of British curators organised by the Rafliu Foundation and Visiting Arts UK in 2005, one of the visual elements used is the map. A real map is taken as a starting point for the depiction of a project which in fact deconstructs existing geographical divisions, and encourages the creation of cultural networks which are formed according to inner reasons, rather interpersonal than external and imposed.

In the same way, www.spatiul-public.ro, realized and maintained by E-cart.ro, is a format through which the different projects, interventions and debates taking place within the Spafliul Public Bucureøti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 project can be both reflected individually, as they take place, and seen together as communicating the different stages of the overall project. Just like one can experience the city in fragments, when crossing it, with its streets, institutions, inhabitants, or one can look at its map and acquire a wider picture of it. Alongside with the information about the project and its components, the website has a special section with a list of bibliographical references and links, which can be used for a more in-depth reading of the project.

All E-cart.ro websites are designed by Eduard Constantin, with technical support from Mædælin Geanæ. COLOPHON

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.

Curators Marius Babias, Sabine Hentzsch Projektassistenz: Raluca Voinea

Partner institutions

With the support of Cultural programme of the German EU Presidency in 2007 provided by the German Foreign Office

Swiss Cultural Programme South-East Europe and Ukraine, a programme of SDC (Swiss Development Cooperation) and Pro Helvetia

Media partners w artæ + societate

Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln

Corporate Design Timotei Nædæøan

www.spatiul-public.ro