COLLATERAL EVENT OF THE 58TH INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION — LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA CURATED BY DANIEL BAKER COMMISSIONED BY ERIAC — FONDAMENTA ZATTERE ALLO SPIRITO SANTO 417 11 MAY - 24 NOVEMBER 2019 ARTISTS: CELIA BAKER JÁN BERKY MARCUS-GUNNAR PETTERSSON ÖDÖN GYÜGYI BILLY KERRY KLÁRA LAKATOS DELAINE LE BAS VALÉRIE LERAY EMÍLIA RIGOVÁ MARKÉTA ŠESTÁKOVÁ SELMA SELMAN DAN TURNER ALFRED ULLRICH LÁSZLÓ VARGA ERIAC EUROPEAN ROMA INSTITUTE COMMISSIONED BY COMMISSIONED FOR ARTS AND CULTURE photo credit: Daniel Baker INTERVIEW CURATOR, DANIEL BAKER Daniel Baker is a Romani Gypsy artist, of La Biennale di Venezia – “Paradise Lost” and researcher, and curator. Originally from Kent, “Call the Witness,” which took place during the now based in London, his work is exhibited 52nd and 54th International Art Exhibition of WITH THE COMMISSIONERS internationally and can be found in collections La Biennale di Venezia, respectively. In 2018, across the globe. Baker earned a PhD in after hosting an open call for curators, an 2011 from the Royal College of Art, with his international jury consisting of Professor Dr. Ethel dissertation, “Gypsy Visuality: Gell’s Art Nexus Brooks, Tony Gatlif, Miguel Ángel Vargas, and OF FUTUROMA and its Potential for Artists,” after previously ERIAC management selected him to curate the earning a MA in Sociology/Gender and Ethnic Roma Collateral Event. TIMEA JUNGHAUS Studies from Greenwich University, and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Ravensbourne College of Baker’s work examines the role of art in the WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE it is to think beyond national Art and Design. enactment of social agency through an eclectic PRESENCE OF ROMA ART AT THE representations. I believe it is very practice that interrogates contemporary LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA? important for the Biennale itself to Baker has contributed to numerous exibitions, art discourse and its social implications via recognise how Roma revolutionise held various residencies, and curated several the reconfiguration of elements of the Roma The Biennale opened its doors in and contribute with a new vision to commissions. He previously worked as an aesthetic. For more information about Baker and 1895, and it is the most prestigious their institution. The Roma exhibition exhibitor and consultant for the first and second his revolutionary work, visit www.danielbaker.net art event in the world. However, demonstrates how to create a Roma events at the International Art Exhibition during this 124 years, there has space of transnational alliances, been Roma presence only 3 trans-border collaboration. It Zeljko Jovanovic times, with the first time being in inspires a self- definition of a Chair of the ERIAC Board 2007. In between 1894 and 2007, transformative character to Europe: Director of the Open Society Roma Initiatives Office, there was no mention of any through which our widely dispersed members of the Roma community and fragmented belongings can in the Biennale history or archives. transcend national boundaries, and CURATORIAL While it is a gigantic effort and invite universal participation. ZELJKO JOVANOVIC somewhat of a heroic undertaking “IMAGINING ROMA to make the Roma exhibition IS THERE STILL ANYONE IN WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HOW WOULD YOU REGARD possible at the Biennale – it is of EUROPE NOT ACCEPTING THE BEING THE COMMISSIONER THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONCEPT BODIES IN SPECULATIVE utmost importance for the Roma TERM “ROMA ART”? OF THE ROMA EXHIBITION – ROMA COMMUNITY COMING community to be included and for FUTUROMA – AT THE 58TH LA TOGETHER AT THE BIENNALE FUTUROMA draws upon aspects of Afrofuturism the art world to learn think beyond The notion of Roma arts and BIENNALE DI VENEZIA, AND IN VENICE – ESPECIALLY to explore Roma contemporary art’s role in FUTURES OFFERS A the nation states in this significant culture was very highly debated BEING PART OF THE OPENING IN CONNECTION TO defining, reflecting and influencing Roma culture. art event. until the years of early 2000. The CEREMONY ON THE 10TH OF CELEBRATING ROMA ARTS AND The exhibition offers new and spontaneous intertextuality of Roma scholarship COUNTER-NARRATIVE” MAY, 2019? CULTURE? re-interpretations of Roma past, present and The first Roma exhibition of on Roma arts and culture and futures via a fusion of the traditional and the 2007 was called “Paradise the excellence of artists of Roma It is an immense honour to be Exhibiting at the Venice Biennale futuristic in order to critique the current situation Lost” featuring a selection of origin have stabilized this notion part of an opening where ERIAC, is immensely important for us, for Roma people and to re-examine historical contemporary Roma artists from of Roma art. It’s not an ethnic as a Roma-led institution, is as we can showcase our vision events. Imagining Roma bodies in speculative eight European countries with category. Roma arts speaks very presenting an exhibition 12 years of ourselves and of the world in FUTUROMA futures offers a counter narrative to the reductive Open Society Foundations being authentically and sensitively from after the first Roma pavilion time and space alongside other ways that Roma culture has been understood the commissioner and its catalyst. within the Roma subjectivity. The opened here in Venice. I am nation-states. We can show, like and constructed—thereby moving our cultural The exhibition marked the arrival notion of Roma art has been the walking in the footsteps of the many Roma do in sports, that OPENING PROGRAM expression beyond the restrictive motifs of of contemporary Roma culture on most important vehicle in the past previous generations of Roma when rules are clear and fair, oppression toward a radical and progressive the international stage and sent five decades to speak positively intellectuals, artists and cultural and when we are not judged by vision of Roma to come. MAY 10, 2019 16.00 – 22.00 an important message of inclusion. about the Roma experience, to producers who have shaped our the colour of our skin but by the In 2011, the exhibition “Call the gain visibility and momentum for artistic and activist history. That richness of our talent, we can do The confluence of traditional knowledge and 16.00 – 18.30 18:30 – 19:00 Witness” addresses the situation of the Roma political movement and history is a basis for FUTUROMA, just as well as any other group contemporary art practice evident within PUBLIC CELEBRATION, RECEPTION PERFORMATIVE MARCH the Roma within European culture to fight against anti-Gypsyism. a forward-looking reflection that has established a nation. FUTUROMA combines to highlight possibilities TO THE FUTURE and society. The current FUTUROMA that is itself making history – at Despite the fact that we do not for different ways of being. Here artworks are PALAZZO CAVALLI FRANCHETTI exhibition is a Roma initiative HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE a time when Roma in European formally have the same status rooted in the techniques and traditions of the S. Marco, 2847, 30124 Venice, Italy 19.00 – 22:00 with a Roma curator and artists of OF ROMA IN THE CONTEXT OF societies are increasingly at the Biennale, our artistic Roma diaspora, but at the same time decisively EXHIBITION OPENING Roma origin exhibiting. It embodies CONTEMPORARY ART? threatened by populism and expression breaks through any forward-looking. The acts of remembering and Performance by the notion of Roma contribution fascism, which exploit deeply social, economic or political imagining manifest within these artworks point Delaine Le Bas FONDAMENTA ZATTERE and Roma leadership as well as The Future of Roma in ingrained prejudice against bars that have been put on us. toward ambitious visions of life affirming futures and Mihaela Drǎgan Allo Spirito Santo, 417, excellence and highest quality of contemporary art is bright. The Roma. That prejudice is the and at the same time allow reinterpretation our 30123 Venice, Italy standards in arts. number of majority organizations wrong answer to the question HOW DO YOU IMAGINE collective pasts. Welcome address: who invite the Roma contribution of who the Roma are. This THE FUTURE OF ROMA Presentation WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO HAVE is growing, while the community exhibition, on the other hand, is REPRESENTATION IN THE In their unique manner each of the artworks Zeljko Jovanovic Daniel Baker A ROMA PRESENCE AT THE is pressing for art institutions a first-person expression of who VENICE BIENNALE? HOW on display in FUTUROMA variously employ and Chairman of the ERIAC Board and Director, Curator BIENNALE? and professional museum spaces Open Society Foundations Roma Initiatives Office we are. DO YOU IMAGINE THE deconstruct different aspects of the primeval, simultaneously on multiple locations. REPRESENTATION OF ROMA the everyday and the futuristic. These objects Moritz Pankok Roma presence at the Biennale Paolo Baratta Director, Kai Dikhas Contemporary Arts Gallery WHAT MADE IT POSSIBLE TO (ARTS AND CULTURE) IN move between the familiar and the unexpected unveils the pedagogy of how President/ Andrea del Mercato, Director, BUILD SUCH AN AMBITIOUS GENERAL? taking us beyond the confines of time and place La Biennale di Venezia inspiring, fertile and transformative Performative lecture by PROJECT? to a different kind of objectivity—to a place to The world of arts, while always Prof. Ethel Brooks see anew. New site-specific works emphasize Performance by Feminist scholar, Rutgers University FUTUROMA was made possible able to help build nation-states, the implications of materiality—physical stuff Santino Spinelli and Dijana Pavlovic by the immense artistic gravitas was never limited to states. On that takes up space in the world. After all, it is – poetry and music Rashida Bumbray, of our curator, Daniel Baker, the the contrary, it has served as an the Roma’s physical presence that is continually Curator and choreographer artists whose works are exhibited expression of suffering caused contested, marked by questions of where and how here, the visionary leadership of by nation-states – for example we are permitted to exist.