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Extreme East
contemporary japanese architecture

1. SENSAI

8 November 2006 - 8 January 2007

Taro Ashihara, Yasushi, Horibe, Kazuo Iwamura, Chitoshi Kitara, Hiroshi Naito, Akira Sakamoto, Eizo Shiina, Yoshii Takehara, Akira Watanabe, Ken Yokogawa

2. CONTINUITY VS MUTATION

8 November 2006 - 8 January 2007

Jun Aoki, Ryuichi Ashizawa, Sou Fujimoto, Tetsuo Furuichi, Masahiro Harada & Mao Harada/ Mount Fuji Architects Studio, Kumiko Inui, Jun Igarashi, Waro Kishi, Kazuyasu Kochi / Kochi
Architects Studio, Kazuhiro Kojima, Kengo Kuma, Hironori Matsubara + BMA, Hiroshi Naito, Tetsuya Nakazon / Naf Architect & Design, Kenji Nawa / Suwa Seisakujo, Taira Nishizawa,
Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA, Kuniaki Takahashi, Makoto Tanijiri / Suppose Design Offi ce, Jun Sato Structural Engineers

organisers: UAR, Arhitectura
main sponsors: Henkel Bautechnik, DuPont Romania
sponsors: Knauf, Velux, Bramac, Mons Medius, Delta Design, Hunter Douglas, Steealcase prin corporate office solution, Isover, Lafarge
wih the support of: Bicau, Primaria sector 1, Min Culturii, AFCN, MNAC, Ambasada Japoniei, Japan Foundation, Stage Expert, Xerox Romania, Compania Nationala de Investitii,
media partners: Igloo, Arhitext, Biz, Business Review, Jurnalul National, 7 seri, Communicate de presa, TVR 2

Urs Luethi
24 November 2006 - 11 February 2007
curator Florin Tudor



Just Another Story About Leaving, Urs Luethi, photo series, 1974

The series of photographical self-portraits Just another story about leaving depicts the gradual transformation (but never the decline) of a face oscillating between masculine and feminine, a face which as if anticipating its own autobiography seeks to project itself through indistinctive identification with the father or the mother figure.
The complexity of the expression and the continuity of the theme coexist and this paradoxical feature is only the first and the most conspicuous in an entire series of dialectical opposites structuring the work of the Swiss artist; his work thrives on the ambivalence between truth and appearance, natural and artificial, order and chaos, high culture and kitsch, banality and sublime, madness and wisdom, the tragic and the burlesque.
These images seem to allude to the structure of the eye, to the sight of the iris and the black opening of the pupil. And still, these works are merely a portrait of the world gazing at itself, a portrait of us all. I'll be your mirror. There is something provocative, a combination of both attraction and repulsion that met the eyes of the spectator in the 70's portraits as well. Lüthi wants to give us a mirror, as if to remind us of our reversed image, gathering us around the emptiness of the desire, around this abyss that somehow, paradoxically, sustains us.
Tiziano Santi


Nikolaus Schletterer
6 December 2006 - 11 February 2007
curators Florin Tudor & Andrei Siclodi

The title of the exhibition, Daylight, refers to a technical characteristic of the analogue photography: the optimal sensitivity of the photographic film while taking outdoor photos in the daytime. In this installation, Nikolaus Schletterer investigates a deserted space, apparently cut out from any spatial or temporal coordinates. Besides his videos, a series of photographs, most of them in black and white, depicts an austere seaside with ruined buildings. Some of the houses are in an advanced state of decay while others seem to have been abandoned under construction. The cause of the sudden disappearance of their inhabitants remains unknown. Although we are left with the impression that a major event occurred, the buildings have nevertheless been subject to natural degradation. Moreover, the images elude any geographical / spatial framing of the area: all buildings are photographed with the sea in the background. Only the road, stretching out to the horizon, gives some sort of orientation, underlying the out of this world feeling.
In Daylight some may discover analogies with the zone from Andrei Tarkovsky s Stalker. Indeed, like the zone in the film, Nikolaus Schletterer s zone is a timeless mental space. The furtherance of knowledge, stemming from the understanding of the complex mechanisms of visual perception, is at the forefront of Daylight.
Andrei Siclodi


Work of the Month
Geta Bratescu & Ion Grigorescu - Ludus. Studio Play
15 December 2006 - 15 January 2007
chosen by Magda Radu

For Geta Bratescu, the studio represents a space of self-knowledge and play; here, we can see the artist performing a series of actions which are familiar to those who already know her work: the "automatic" drawing, the ritual of the make-up, the white mask which stands for her self-constructed persona, for her double. The camera lingers on the cupboard covered with many posters, photos and postcards which make up a visual archive with examples ranging from the Greek Antiquity to Matthew Barney. Ion Grigorescu's reflection in the mirror, handling the camera, signals that he himself is part of this visual memory. It also points to the close relationship between the two artists, to the double play that takes place between the artist behind the camera and the one who plays a role in front of it.




Indian Lava & Ritz Mood Guru present
Salve Fiat Romuli
Painting Exhibition - Gorzo
curator Liviana Dan
5 October - 30 December 2006


Partners: Muzeul Brukental Sibiu, Galeria H'art Bucuresti, ICR Bucuresti








Thomas Hirschhorn
conference:
"A propos du Musee Precaire Albinet"

participants:
Maria Rus-Bojan (Project Stichting Amsterdam) / Bogdan Ghiu

Friday / 17 November / 06 / 18h00 Auditorium / Calea 13 Septembrie / Bucuresti


Thomas Hirschhorn
Musée Précaire Albinet
Semaine Léger, exposition
2004, Aubervilliers
courtesy : Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers et l'artiste






WORK OF THE MONTH/November
DONALD SIMIONOIU
Placid Couples
oil on canvas, 2006
chosen by Ruxandra Balaci

Simionoiu’s portraits feature recognizable typologies of present-day Romanians: they are antiheroical figures, grotesque touching or simply risible. In between the subtle irony which reveals itself only at a second glance and the rethoric of a clichéd Romanticism, the references are made at the erotic pattern of a routined daily life in a block of flats. Funny, forceful, and sophisticated his work is assuming the difficult task of revealing le cache des individus et d’une partie de la societe.









INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITIES
Scandinavian Video Art (screening)
wednesday 22 November 2006, 18.00
Curator: Anne Szefer Karlsen
Works by: Bodil Furu (N), Mariken Kramer (N), Ane Lan (N), Peter Larsson (S), Kjersti Solberg Monsen (N), Jakob Nielsen (DK), Lars Nilsson (S), Ditte Lyngkær Pedersen (DK), Sixten Therkildsen (DK), Jakob Tækker (DK), Kristin Tarnesvik (N) and Arne Vinnem (N)

A selection of twelve video pieces made by Scandinavian artists are chosen for this screening to present a view on what it is like to live in a vast region with scattered population. The selected videos in Individual Communities play on documentary, fiction, animation and poetic strategies and take a look at some of recent social changes in the Scandinavia and the way they affect the individual.

Supported by: Office For Contemporary Art , Norway

http://www.szefer.net/24vs25850.htm




Through Popular Expression
19 October- 19 November
curators Hu Fang si Zhang Wei, guest curator Simona Nastac
artists: Cao Fei, Jun Yang, MAP office, Xu Tan, Xu Zhen, Zhang Yuan, Zheng Gougu







WORK OF THE MONTH / October
THOMAS CIULEI
"Asta e"

92 min, 2001, 35 mm color, transfered on DVD

Chosen by Ruxandra Balaci





martin is not fanny
Martin Zet, a video retrospective, curated by Fania Kaplan
14 September– 14 November 2006
performance 22 October, 18:00 h
with the support of the Czech Center Bucuresti






Saga-The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen

curators A.D. Coleman si Todd Brandow
6 September - 22 october
opening: 5 September/ 18h00

In 1970 the Finnish American photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen began making images of himself and never stopped. During these decades he has steadily generated astonishing and memorable pictures exploring his body's interaction with the physical environement. Saga, the most extensive presentation of Minkinnen's project to date, distills 35 years of his life's work.



Work of the month
Every month, the mediatheque of the museum (4th floor), will host a newly created work exhibited for one month, chosen by a MNAC curator.

September 2006
Irina Botea: “Auditions for a Revolution”
video and film 16 mm, 24 min, Chicago, 2006
chosen by Ruxandra Balaci

Chicago 2006: young people audition for roles in a reenactment of the first televised revolution, the 1989 Romanian revolution.

The Romanian artist Irina Botea, who withessed the events, juxtaposes actual footage of the revolution* from the well known film of Harun Farocky,“Videogram of a Revolution” with reenactments by non-Romanian speaking performers of those same televised events.

The new performance was recorded on video and also on 16mm film camera, a camera the artist acquired from a documentary film company that quite likely used the camera to film the 1989 revolution.

*Courtesy Harun Farocky’s film “Videogram of a Revolution”



project "PerForming the Body"
7 - 8 October
a project initiated by ArtLink
coordonator: Florin Fieroiu
artists: Dana Balint, Mihaela Dancs, Florin Flueras, Ionut Stana,Iuliana Stoianescu
Parteners :
DanceWEB, Cultura2000, ArCuB - Centrul de proiecte culturale al
municipiului Bucuresti, Pro Helvetia - Programul Cultural Elvetian in
Romania, AFCN - Administratia Fondului Cultural National, CNDB - Centrul
National al Dansului Bucuresti, MNAC - Muzeul National de Arta
Contemporana, 24-FUN si MCC - Fondul de mobilitate
Parteneri ArtLink: comunicatedepresa.ro, TimeOut Bucuresti, port.ro,
Infinium, Wonderboy
www.artlink.org.ro





Dutch Installation Art
20 May - 10 September
curator: Annet Dekker
artists: Michiel van Bakel, Jasper van der Brink, Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukacs, Rikkert Brok, eddie d, Jan Peter van der Wenden, Kirsten Geisler, Bernard Gigounon, Nan Hoover, Andreas Siefert, Bill Spinhoven, Eric Steensma, Martijn Veldhoen, Gerald van der Kaap


Gerald van der Kaap, Chill Cave

Optical illusions have fascinated man as far back as the Middle Ages, and continue to do so. For some time now film has been the magical medium par
excellence, but since the rise of video film no longer has the sole claim to this magic. With virtual reality and the computer the possibilities seem unlimited. In the exhibition Dutch Installation Art a desire for the extraordinary, which is at the core of any fantastic machine, travels through as an undercurrent - and is often transferred to the viewer as an experience for the senses.

The artists in the exhibition reveal the magic in media art. By playing with space, light and shadow, extreme close-ups or computer techniques the "art magique" is brought to life. When you enter the darkened space of the video installation Dislocations by Martijn Veldhoen your eyes are immediately drawn towards a white cross on the floor, lit from above by a spotlight. And just as in the plaza in front of St. Peter's, this marks the spot where something happens, where the horizon shifts and opens up a different perspective. The single channel video Starship by Bernard Gigounon is a spectacle of scudding spaceships, or are they? The images in Starship form an impressive entity, in no way inferior to science fiction films like Star Wars. However, as you watch longer, it appears that the airships did not originate in the imagination of the artist. And laying down in the Chill Terminal, artist Gerald van der Kaap brings people in a state of "total hoverty" - 'No other drugs required. All senses operative.'

Co-organiser: Netherlands Media Art Institute Montevideo / Time Based Arts
With the support of: the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Bucharest, Mondriaan Foundation

Sponsors: Paravion.ro / Millenium, JW Marriott. Bucharest Grand Hotel, ATIPIC PLUS, Peroni, Five's
Media partners: 24 Fun, Re:PUBLIK, Igloo, Arhitectura, Rfi



Josef Dabernig. Films.
(featuring G.R.A.M. and Markus Scherer)
26 April - 3 September
curator Florin Tudor


Rosa coeli (Josef Dabernig), 2003


This film selection presented now in Bucharest contains works done by Josef Dabernig between 1996 (Wisla) and 2005 (Lancia Thema). The films can be read like a layered narrative of different contexts, not necessarily explaining them but working with the tension generated by their internal contradictions. The script is constructed similar to Dabernig's minimalist architecture interventions and grid structures, using rational methods to organize camera movements, tempo, actions - but at the same time considering imperfections, absences or lapses. His characters are performing usual, familiar gestures in a repetitive yet fragmented, disrupted way.
(Florin Tudor)

The work of Josef Dabernig sometimes seems to be a sort of personal archaeology of modernity. It displays an admiration for the utopian and rational, but also a certain pleasure at gaps, mismatches and failures in such ideally conceived structures. It is important that he sees modernity as marked by contradictions and as heterogeneous in spite of its claims for universality. Admiration for the rational forms and structures of modernity and a certain obsession with them are always combined with an ironic and distanced attitude.
(Igor Zabel, 2003)


List of films:


Wisla

1996, 16mm to DVD, b/w, 8 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Camera: Thomas Baumann
Editing and Sound: Josef Dabernig, Martin Kaltner
Cast: Josef Dabernig, Martin Kaltner, Emil Brix, Jerzy Fedorowicz, Ludwik Mietta-Mikolajewicz, Rembert Schleicher


Timau

1998, 16mm to DVD, b/w, 20 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig, Markus Scherer
Camera: Christian Giesser
Cast: Josef Dabernig, Wolfgang Dabernig, Markus Scherer, Marino Grassi, Cesira Leschiutta


Jogging

2000, 35mm to DVD, colour, 11 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Camera: Christian Giesser
Music: Olga Neuwirth


WARS

2001, 16mm to DVD, b/w, 10 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Camera: Christian Giesser
Cast: Josef Dabernig, Ingeburg Wurzer, Otto Zitko


automatic

2002, 16mm to DVD, b/w, 7 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig, G.R.A.M.
Camera: Christian Giesser
Editing: Volker Sernetz, XXKunstkabel
Cast: Martin Behr, Josef Dabernig, Günther Holler-Schuster, Gerhard Peckary
Music: Binder&Krieglstein


Rosa coeli

2003, 35mm to DVD, b/w, 24 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Words: Bruno Pellandini
Voice: Branko Samarovski
Camera: Christian Giesser
Sound design: Michael Palm
Cast: Wolfgang Dabernig, Kurt Fellinger, Thomas Schmid, Josef Dabernig


Lancia Thema

2005, 35mm to DVD, colour, 17 min
Concept and Realisation: Josef Dabernig
Camera: Christian Giesser
Sound design: Michael Palm
Cast: Josef Dabernig


"Two German Architectures: 1949-1989"
15 May - 27 August
curators: Hartmut Frank & Simone Hain

The ifa exhibition presents a historical retrospective of the evolution of architecture between the two German states and tries, along with some newly discovered materials from East and West as well, to encourage reflection and comparison, referring to the housing problem in the first place but also to the problem of monuments dealing with tradition and innovation. In the same time the exhibition illustrates the cultural, the political and the economical contexts of the development of these two architectures and analyses historically the factors that influenced their course.
This project is made possible also with the collaboration of "Planwerk" from Cluj, The Order of Romanian Architects and the "Arhitectura" magasine.



Eastern Alliance 3 / Teledivision Show

10 May - 27 August

Curators: Ivan Mecl, Jiri Ptacek, Spunk Seipel, Leonor Nuridsany, Alena Boika, Petrit Hoxha, Hana Vojackova, Marisol Dodriguez
Artists: Akhe Group / Alexander Györfi / Anneta Mona Chisa and Lucia Tkácová / Cécile Paris / Cecilia Lundquist / Ciprian Muresan / David Krippendorf / David Ortsman / Debora Hirsch / Dimitry Gutov / Dimitry Gutov and Radek Community / Dorotea Etzler / Gabriel Acevedo / Gabriela Golder / Guma Guar / Gustavo Galuppo / Jakup Ferri / Jan Suk / Jan Žalio / Jaap de Ruig / Jim Holland / Jirí Havlícek and Filip Cenek / Joaquin Segura / Joep Van Liefland / Kuang-Yu Tsui / Lebel and le Goff / Linda Urbánková / Luciana Lamonthe / Maix Mayer / Marie Denis / Mark Ther / Mark Ther and Ondrej Brody / Martin Zet / Matej Smetana / Matt Saundres / Michal Pechoucek / Nine Budde / Oleg Lystsov / Oliver Pietsch / Ondrej Brody / Ondrej Ševcík / Pavel Ryška / Petr Strouhal / Petra Petiletá / Philipp Hirsch and Heiko Tippelt / Philippe Meste / Radim Labuda / Rudina Xhaferi / Sebastiano Mauri / Sláva Sobotovicová /Tim Coe / Thorsten Schlopsnies- Todosch / Zoran Todorovic / Zornitsa Sophia


Martin Zet

Eastern Alliance brings a real parade of contemporary video art and experimental feature films, each projection having the format of aTV show. The project tries to fill a gap and make the video art more accessible, by democratic means.

" Enough with watching video art secretly, in artistic venues. The TV audience cant even here about it. We have decided to give the video art back to the real video fans. Video art is one of the most important cultural phenomena today, a type of art which easily transcends inner borders by connecting films, installations, pop culture, comics, games etc. The video works that we can see in galleries are definitely facing a serious lack of interest from the media.

The video works will be conceived as typical TV shows shown on erotic, news, documentaries or children channels and they will be accompanied by leaflets. The leaflets will be designed as a typical TV program where the audience will be able to find out more about the video works and tehir heroes, but also about the time and place where they can see those shows. The source of the shows is the artistic creation all around the world. The most represented this time will be the Czech Republic, with a selection of works done by Ivan Mecl and Jiri Ptacek and Germany, with works selected by Spunk Seipel."

co-organisers: Centrul Ceh, [Ksa:K]
partners : BRD, HP, Divus, Aston Rent
media partners: 24FUN, rfi, RePublik, Igloo, Arhitectura, Umelec



PREVIEW
SINGLE CHANNEL WORKS / 2002 - 2005/
MNAC Mediateque presents starting from 24 February 2006 a selection from the film collection of the Netherlands Media Art Institute / MONTEVIDEO TIME BASED ARTS



Artists: Jeroen Kooijmans & Roy Cerpac / Leon Grodski / A.P. Komen & Karen Murphy / Robert Hamilton / eddie d / Antonin de Bemels / Julika Rudelius / Pierre-Yves Cruaud / Ezra Eeman / Jeroen Offerman / Bas van Koolwijk / Jan van de Pavert / Shiho Kano / Seoungho Cho/ Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay /Sebastian Diaz Morales / Janet Merewether / Martijn Veldhoen / Yael Bartana / Robert Arnold / Michiel van Bakel / Bernard Gigounon/ Janneke Küpfer / Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukàcs / Bea de Visser/ Peter Bogers / Adad Hannah / Sami Kallinen / Anouk de Clercq /Jan van Nuenen / Jordan Crandall / Arno Coenen / Sterling Ruby / Martijn Veldhoen / Nicolas Provost / Christoph Draeger / reMI / Jasper van den Brink / Corinna Schnitt / Lin de Mol / Caitlin Hulscher / Sterling Ruby / Els Opsomer / Guido van der Werve / Anouk de Clercq, Joris Cool & Eavesdropper / Mike Stubbs / Ra di Martino / Jeremy Drummond / Emmanuelle Antille / Manuel Saiz / Pia Wergius /Jan de Bruin /Azorro Group / Pieter-Paul Mortier / Rob Johannesma

www.montevideo.nl



Photographic experiments from the collection of IVAM, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern
13 April - 21 May
curator Josep Vicent Monzo

America SÁNCHEZ, John BALDESSARI, Constantin BRANCUSI, Jose (Pepe) CALVO NOVELL, Pere CATALÀ PIC, Paul CITROËN, Luis CONTRERAS, Dis Berlín (Mariano CARRERA), Cesar DOMELA NIEUWENHUIS, Marcel DUCHAMP, Manuel FALCES LÓPEZ, Joan FONTCUBERTA, George GROSZ, Richard HAMILTON, Alfonso HERRAIZ SERRANO, Eduard IBÁÑEZ MAGRANER, Jan KAMMAN, Gustav Gustavovich KLUCIS, Jos LEONARD, El LISSITZKY, Chema MADOZ, Jose María MENDOZA RODRÍGUEZ, László MOHOLY-NAGY, Henry PEACH ROBINSON, Arnulf RAINER, MAN RAY, Josep BERENGUER RENAU, Jorge RUEDA, Antonio SAURA, Cindy SHERMAN, Anton STANKOWSKI, Grete STERN, Stefan THEMERSON, Eugen WISKOVSKY.


Cindy Sherman, Untitled no 91, 1981

Organised by Instituto Cervantes Bucarest, with the support of the ASTROC Foundation (Spain)





Happy Sundays @ the museum #11
Henning Lundkvist (Sweden) / live performance

Tugget (Sweden) dj set
25 June




Fluid Images, Grenoble
26 May - 19 June
artists: Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan, Vali Chincisan, Pierre Dugelay, Vlaicu Golcea, D. Fabbri Lawson & J. Corréard\

Gallery 3/4, National Theater, Bd. Balcescu 2



VI/SAS/GAME - contemporary dance performance
27 - 28 May

Dancers & choreographers: Cosmin Manolescu, Pascal Allio / lights & video: Stefano Piermatteo
Produced by Proiect DCM & Institut Francais Bucarest



White Night in MNAC (The Night of the Museums)
20 May 20h00 - 21 may 06h00

One night each year, most of the European museums are opened to public. All MNAC exhibitions will be open till dawn. A special 10hrs video and music programme.

20h00, opening of Dutch Installation Art
……………………………………………………………

21h00 VideoNight
curator: Jozsef Bartha
……………………………….................................

21h30 Launching of Omagiu #3

…………………….............................................
22h30
Mihai Popoviciu / dj set
The Model / dj set
Tom Wilson / dj set (TBC)
Underconstruct / vj set
VideoNight / curator Jozsef Bartha
Dj & Vj sets / TBA.



NowHere Europe
Trans:it. Moving Culture Through Europe

10 March - 12 May

Mario Airò, Can Altay, Patrick André, An Architektur, Atelier van Lieshout, Baktruppen, Shigeru Ban, Massimo Bartolini, Matei Bejenaru, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Irina Botea, Eva Brunner-Szabo, Campement Urbain, Mircea Cantor, Monserrat Cortadellas Bacaria, matali crasset, Calin Dan, Esra Ersen, Gelatin, Ion Grigorescu, Gülsün Karamustafa, Kimsooja, Iosif Király, Athanasia Kyriakakos, A.P.Komen & Murphy, Aydan Murtezaoglu, Lucy Orta, Osservatorio Nomade, Maria Papadimitriou, Cesare Pietroiusti, Oda Projesi, Bülent Sangar, School of Missing Studies, Skart, Sean Snyder, Simon Starling, Socrates Stratis, Anne-Violaine Taconet, Krassimir Terziev, Barthélémy Toguo, Gert Tschögl, Urban Void, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Erik van Lieshout, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Zafos Xagoraris, Edwin Zwakman.

*curator : Bartolomeo Pietromarchi

 

Trans:it. Moving Culture Through Europe is an itinerant project that deals with the most urgent themes of contemporary culture and artistic production in Europe . An observatory/laboratory on the various practices of artistic intervention on the territory.
The members of the Advisory Board for NowHere Europe are: Ruxandra Balaci, Iara Boubnova, Anselm Franke, Germana Jaulin, Katerina Koskina, Marco Scotini, Pelin Tan, Nina Vagiç.

Cycle of documentary films by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi
The cycle of documentary films of the project Trans:it. Moving Culture through Europe represents the synthesis of field research carried out along three itineraries. The documentaries were made using an approach that was both critical and curatorial, considering video the ideal means to deal with the fluidity of the issues analysed.
Structured according to the geographic routes through the cities in which research was carried out, the documentaries include interviews with artists, architects and critics and present the contexts in which the interventions were realized.

The Invisible Community
Documentary film, Italy, 2003-2005
DVCAM, 46' 23"
Original language Engl./Fr./It. (subtitled in English)
This first documentary covers the first phase of research for the project, looking at an itinerary that passed through Paris, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Rome. The research investigates suburban and urban contexts in which "invisible communities" have grown up as a result of the redefinition of social relationships and the development of cultures parallel to those of the country in question. Multiculturalism, abandoned places, collective imagination and memory, visual and social transformation, the image of the city and the sense of public space in the European context, are all themes examined.

Ruins for the Future
Documentary film, Italy, 2004
DVCAM, 46'
Original language: English.
The second documentary film was shot in Berlin, Bucharest, Sophia and Belgrade where, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, artists, architects and art critics contributed to redesigning the urban landscape. Through new geographies and visual transformations, memory and identity are questioned when the city's form changes and the city itself seems to become more vulnerable. Ruins speak of the existence of a lost time which artistic practice endeavours to rediscover: artists seek to construct a common plane on which to merge individual experience with collective experience, personal responsibility with civil responsibility.

Fluid Cities
Documentary film, Italy, 2004
DVCAM, 32' 47"
Original language: English
During the third phase, the projects for public space developed by artists active in Athens, Istanbul and Cyprus show a particular interest in traditions and local culture, manifested in light of globalising pressures arriving from the world at large.
These cities have been transformed into multicultural laboratories. Migratory flows, collective memories and spaces undergoing rapid change have given shape to the concept of fluidity, a characteristic common to various territories and demonstrative of the continual, rapid and increasing process of transformation to which the urban context is subject.

Artists projects

ROTTERDAM

Atelier van Lieshout
AVL- Ville
2001
Video documentation, 60'
In the year 2001 Atelier van Lieshout realised AVL-Ville, a free state at the port of Rotterdam. This large-scale project can be viewed as a grand work of art that represents the culmination of AVL's work so far. AVL-Ville had its own flag, currency and constitution, as well as facilities such as a power plant, working and living units, a mobile farm, compost toilets, a water purification system, a fully operational hospital, a restaurant and a distillery.
After eight months, AVL-Ville was closed down, but recently AVL created the first export-product of AVL-Ville in Park Middelheim in Antwerp: AVL Franchise Unit. The unit can be considered the first building of a new settlement.

Erik van Lieshout
Respect
2003
Video, 8' 25''
The video Respect depicts an absurd multicultural context in the southern suburbs of the city of Rotterdam. A group of black, African and Arab kids act along with the artist, offering their own take on some disconcerting aspects of the urban experience and ethnic identity in contemporary society. They created their own screenplay on how to get rich by dealing drugs and involving Erik and his brother Bart in their illegal activities. It seems a banal story, but it is their story, and most importantly, the story they wanted to tell.

ROME

Osservatorio Nomade
Immaginare Corviale
2005
Documentary film, 30'
The video documents the project Imagining Corviale realised by Osservatorio Nomade in collaboration with several artists, architects and filmmakers in the neighbourhood of Corviale.
Corviale is a 958-metre-long public housing complex inhabited by about 6000 people, located in the south-western perifery of Rome. The project deals with the imagery, memory, life and transformation of a public space. The artists involved worked in cooperation with the inhabitants to create a new image for the residential complex. Imagining Corviale developed through laboratories for the creation of a local television station, and for the production of events and artistic interventions. Three dimensions emerged from a dialogue with the residents: the real and subjective experience of the place, the image of the place, and the memory of the place. These three dimensions led to the development of the three platforms of the project: ON/Field, ON/UniverCITY and ON/Network.

Armin Linke e Renato Rinaldi
Nuovo corviale, 2005

PARIS

Campement Urbain
Qui decide de la beauté ? (Who decides beauty ?)
I and Us project
2003
Video, 26'
The project I and Us was conceived for the recently-constructed Beaudottes district of the city of Sevran, which has developed around the RER station along the "B" metro line between Paris and the Charles de Gaulle airport, and now houses thousands of people. The neighbourhood, consisting largely of public housing and hosting an emarginated population made up of a majority of foreigners, has become infamous for social problems. The intent of Campement Urbain, as the video shows, is to create, within an area of great urban tension, a special place available to all and protected by everyone (I and Us). It is an on-going project the goal of which is to act "from within", and to experiment with new forms of responsibility and sharing.

BUCAREST/BUCHAREST

Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica
Viodeograms of a Revolution
1992
16mm film, 106'
Videograms of a Revolution, concerns the Romanian revolution of 1989 - including the fall, flight attack and Christmas day execution of President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena - and was put together under the direction of Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica from independent and state television video and film sources. Videograms is intended as to represent the closing of the parentheses of the Twentieth century in Eastern Europe. Crowds are seen from above scattering under gunfire: revolutionary leaders are shown seizing the stages at popular demonstrations, and major events in the story are presented from multiple perspectives.

Ion Grigorescu
My Beloved Bucharest
1978
8mm film, 14'
The film, shot during the construction of the Bucharest metro, focuses on the gradual proletarianization and degradation of what was once the elegant capital of Romania. Grigorescu uses the worksite to represent the gradual change in the regime's policies. Areas under demolition designated for the construction of new housing for the working classes and for the metro are not the subject of an in-depth analysis, but rather the situation captured by the filmmaker as he walked around with a hand-held camera is. Political slogans, displayed on large billboards all over town or published in newspapers, promoted the "golden future" of communism: they read, for example, "Long live communism, the shining future of the human race!", or "Tell future generations of our sacrifice!"


SOFIA

Antoniy Donchev
Art on the Tiles
1989
35mm film, 13'
In September 1989 a group of young avant-garde Bulgarian artists organized an exhibition on the roof terrace of the Artists Union building in Sofia. This happening is documented by Antoniy Donchev's video, which, through a series of interviews with the artists who participated, focuses both on the works presented in the show and on the situation of contemporary art in Bulgaria in the period imediately preceding the fall of the Berlin wall. Between the art works on display, View to the West by Nedko Solakov was presented: a telescope was placed on the parapet of the terrace, and, looking to the West, focused on the red star of the Communist Party building in Sofia. The work raised much controversy and censorship, which the artist refers to in an interview. The exhibition seemed to anticipate the changes that would soon revolutionize the social and political panorama of Eastern Europe.

Luchezar Boyadjiev
Super! Super!
2003
Video, 4' 26''
The video Super!Super! takes its cues from the project Hot City Visual, which explores urban visual logics and intervenes on the visual environment of the city of Sofia. The visual interface of the neo-capitalist city is defined by a law which makes it possible for anyone to display anything, anywhere, as long as he can afford to pay for it. The work of Luchezar Boyadjiev consists of promoting a reversal of this stratified visual hierarchy in which vast visual spaces for corporate billboards are located on high, while crude, handmade small family businesses logos are affixed lower down. Super! Super! advertises a small Roma family business in a corporate way, by positioning a huge billboard in the centre of town. The decision to publicize Stefan's family businesses is due largely to the fact that the Rom gypsy minority, although certainly visible on the streets of Sofia, has no presence in the advertising context and is presented in a negative way by the media.

BELGRADE

Škart
Škart in short
2001
Documentazione video / video documentation, 3' 13''
Škart in Short is a video documenting the various projects that the Škart collective has carried forth in recent years, subverting the mass media system and creating a new kind of art economy. The project Your Shit-Your responsibility began in 2000 and consisted of a series of urban actions regarding the concept of responsibility. 10 With Onions-Embroidery Project, on the other hand, is a yearly itinerant project that involves several female collectives living in the area around Belgrade, like ChoircheŠKart, which uses the choir as a symbol of togetherness. The urban actions organised by Škart attempt to involve people on several planes of collective responsibility and self-awareness, as in Coupons Actions (1998-on going) which reuses the coupons the regime used to print for bread distribution as a means to rename new forms of limitations and share new feelings.

ATHENS

Athanasia Kyriakakos
Coffee World
2004
Video documentation, 6'45''
Athanasia Kyriakakos' work is a sort of journey springing from her own memory and experience as an artist and a woman. The coffee performances/coffee readings were born out of a need to create an environment, a space that was both public and intimate, one that would challenge a community to form around it. Not too long ago women would gather on their verandas to share a cup of coffee and share their dreams, hopes, and fears. Coffee became the catalyst for such a connection. The Greek artist has chosen to share this personal material with other people in order to build new possibilities of relationships in the public context, new ideas of communality and original perceptions of space and time. The environments and communities thus created are both temporary and mobile, like the society we live in. The simple action of sharing or giving has the consequence of slowing down time for the public, who in turn give their time to be part of this exchange, this dialogue.

Maria Papadimitriou
Transbonanza Platform (Luv Car)
2003
Video documentation, 13' 40''
Since 1988, and within the context of the work in progress T.A.M.A. (Temporary Autonomous Museum for All), Maria Papadimitriou has been working with a community of Vallach-Romanian origin that lives on the outskirt of Athens. She intervenes in the community's living conditions, and it is this intervention that she proposes as her work. Trans-Bonanza Platform (Luv Car) is a truck, the open bed of which has been converted into a platform that can be used as a stage for live concerts. The truck roams through the neighborhoods of Athens, inviting passers-by to partecipate in an impromptu celebration, a kind of carnival, in which roles are reversed and at the same time delineate a sphere of rebellion. The truck transcends the prescribed borders of various leisure zones, transgressing not only urban but also ideological boundaries: the truck is a stereotype of the mythology that has been built up around the Rom, often used as an index of exoticism emptied of meaning.

ISTANBUL

Can Altay
'We're paperman' he said
2003
Video, 9' 56''
Minibar
2001-2003
Video, 3' 30''
The papermen as they call themselves go through the garbage of the city, sifting through trash and garbage to extract and recycle objects they can earn a bit of money from. In general, theirs is an activity aimed at earning money in a very organized and territorialized manner. Unrecognized and unofficial, the papermen move through the streets with their carts, occupy sidewalks sifting through garbage. They act against the official garbage collection system, and against the system in general, but what they do supports the system itself, due to the enormous increase in recycling rates.
The project Minibar is based on the temporary utilization of existing urban elements around and between buildings by youth for night-life and socializing. Minibar is not a radical "taking over" yet it encourages shifting and subversion of the meanings appointed to these already existing spaces which are neither public nor private. In Minibar, space is produced without building anything, and there exists no commercial entity, no service provided, just people hanging out, bringing their own drinks.


Esra Ersen
Brothers and Sisters
2003
Video, 23' 27''
The video Brothes and Sisters is the result of many months of work carried out by the artist in collaboration with a group of African immigrants in the city of Istanbul. Esra Ersen reflects on the urban experience and the perception of the city space by people normally marginalized from community life, illegal immigrants living temporarily in Turkey before moving on to Western European countries. The transitory status of these immigrants influences the way they use the urban fabric (houses as camps, meeting places…) and the characteristics of their identities, divided between their own traditions and a future social position.


Gülsün Karamustafa
Objects of Desire/ A Suitcase Trade (100 $ Limit)
1998-2001
Video documentation, 9'22''
Gulsun Karamustafa's project reflects on the possibilities of coexistence between the Eastern perspective and the Western attitude: political, economical, religious, sexual tensions between opposites are experienced directly by the artist. By observing market relations in the city of Istanbul, referred to as the "suitcase trade", "tourist trade" or the "border trade", the artist reflected on these trends. Carrying a suitcase filled with illegal goods that he had recently purchased from the informal markets of Istanbul, Gusuln Karamustafa crossed the borders to various destinations where she sold the contents of her suitcase so as to share her experience with the public.


Oda Projesi
Oda Revisited
2004
Video documentation, 25' 43''
The documentary video Oda Revisited covers the different phases of a project realized by the art collective Oda Projesi in Istanbul's city center Galata neighbourhood. Interviewing the residents of the district and documenting the different activities promoted there, the video analyses how the group bases its work on the creative potential of everyday life. Their primary interest is to involve inhabitants of the neighbourhood to increase the possibilities of developing a "social sculpture" in progress, moulded by the relationships between individuals and spaces in everyday life.

Presentation of the book The [un] common place. Art, public space and urban aesthetics in Europe.
The book documents more than fifty artistic and urban projects and interventions realized or in the process of realization in Europe. 254 pages with theoretical contributions by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, Hou Hanru, Katerina Koskina, Theophilos Tramboulis, Claudia Zanfi, Ana Paula Cohen, Maartje Berendsen, Lidia Porcar, Ramon Parramon, Ute Meta Bauer, François Hers, Jean-Baptiste Joly, Iara Boubnova, Ruxandra Balaci, Mihnea Mircan, Yorghos Tzirtzilakis, Raluca Velisar, Pelin Tan, Jochen Becker/ Metrozones, Erden Kosova, Teresa Macrì, Eric Corne.


www.transiteurope.org



Happy Sundays@The Museum #10
30 April 16h00 - till late
The Happy Sundays are back. Special guests as DJs. TBA.


Michael Bielicky, Kamilla B.Richter / Falling life
(projection on the MNAC façade)
30 April from 22h00

An ongoing project that was introduced for the first time in Berlin in August 2005 and the last September at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz. This urban screening project doesn't need a curator or a gallery; it doesn't need a fixed place or an access to electric power. The artists are using facades of buildings that can be immediately changed into a projection screen. Michael Bielicky and Kamila B. Richter are using a minimalist language of constantly appearing and disappearing white pictograms or words.

With the support of the Czech Center Bucharest




Hardcomics Anthology / Launch
4 May 2006 / from 19h00
special guest Dorit Chrysler / concert and more
www.hardcomics.ro



George Apostu, Roman Cotosman, Paul Neagu
Artists in Exile

curator: Mihai Oroveanu
February - March






Wj's workshop and performances
a project by the Romanian Ministry of Culture
20-23 March 2006
Participating artists: Lucille Calmel, Sylvie Astié, Jean- Baptiste Bayle, Olga Kisseleva, Vali Chincisan, Dorel Naste, Suzana Dan, Mihaela Kavdanska.
curator : Anne Roquigny
programmer : Stéphane Kyles
coordinator : Cosmin Tapu

The very first WJ's international workshop in Bucharest represents a collaboration between French and Romanian artists during the Etats Genereaux de la Francophonie. The workshop will end with eight live web performances of the participating artists starting from 18h30 on thursthday 23/03 in MNAC's Mediathéque.

WJ-s is a flexible, high speed connexion public device for web performances (WJ-s/ession) which allows actors of the Internet ( WJs, webjockeys, sound and image artists, netartists, bloggers, graphic designers, flashers, programmers, curators, hacktivists, newmedia theorists, pioneers and web mutants...) to play live with the full scope of contents available in the wideness of the web.

www.wj-s.org




Rokolectiv - festival for electronic music and related visual arts
27, 28, 29 January

www.rokolectiv.ro

!The Beginning!

Hard to imagine and hard to digest, Bucharest is the only place where such festivals don't happen. This is urgent!
We've all hidden our frustration and succeeded to fight against isolation.
We all ran to take a closer look to frenetic creative hotbeds like London, Paris, Tokyo or Berlin and then returned to spread the rumor.
Rokolectiv is the long awaited international festival for electronic music and digital culture in Bucharest. With the creative effervescence that only festivals have, Rokolectiv digs for Romanian emerging talents and dispatches international artists.

The festival is organised by Rokolectiv and MNAC.

Parteners
Club Transmediale Berlin, Goethe Institute, French Institute, Czech Centre, Cultural Centre of the American Embassy, Austrian Embassy, Pro Helvetia, Japan Foundation, Cervantes Institute

Media partners
B24FUN, Clubbing Mag, RePublik, Radio Delta RFI, AKM, 4elemente

Friday 27.01.2006

19h00
Gojira&Kosak/ visuals by MiKa / Romania
Christian Fennesz / Touch Music / Austria
Yvat&Cut / SubliminalTapeClub LaStrada Music / Romania
Ježíš Táhne na Berlín / muteme / Czech Republic
DJ Elephant Power / Sonig Records / Belgium

Saturday 28.01.2006

16h30
Club Transmediale / Berlin- festival presentation/ panel -Invited guest: Remco Schuurbiers / CTM / Disk / Berlin
Screening Paranoid, 2005,
Remco Schuurbiers

19h00
Brazda lui Novac/ visuals by Dilmana / Romania
Mlada Fronta / Parametric / France
Rec_Overflow / Spa.RK / Spain
Materidouska / muteme / Czech Republic
Jason Forrest aka Donna Summer / Sonig Records / USA

Sunday 29.02.2006

19h00
Aoki Takamasa & Tujiko Noriko / Progressive Form / Japan
Discordless / Romania
Electronicat / DiskoB / France
My Robot Friend / Proptronix / USA