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ADRIAN GHENIE

19.11.2009 - 14.02.2010

Curator: Magda Radu

The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest presents the first survey exhibition of paintings by Adrian Ghenie (born 1977), the well-known Romanian artist who lives and works in Cluj and Berlin . The exhibition underscores the way in which Ghenie has been developing a consistent engagement with issues such as memory and history, by subjecting his artistic practice to a process of continuous renewal and experimentation.

Ghenie is an ardent researcher of the history of the 20 th century, being preoccupied with unearthing forgotten narratives, marginal events and seemingly insignificant details in order to compose a visual vocabulary that is both compelling and uncanny. The subject matter does not revolve around a single set of concerns, and yet the different themes of Ghenie's paintings seem to connect. Spectral presences of Hitler and Lenin, collective bodies of anonymous, defaced people – are all there to reveal the feebleness and inconsistency of our memory. The failure of modernity brought about by the catastrophes of the Second World War is seen in conjunction with the rise of modern forms of entertainment such as cinema, another major topic for Ghenie.

From the strong effects of chiaroscuro reminiscent of Caravaggio to the frieze-like compositions that bring to mind David Hockney's alignment of disconnected elements alluding to a theatre set; from an indebtedness to the tradition of Renaissance painting, visible in the rigorous construction of the picture space, to the uninhibited handling of paint that recalls the gestural freedom of abstract expressionism – Ghenie incorporates a multitude of references and idioms that do not result in a gratuitous postmodern game, but rather evince his commitment to investigate the possibilities of painting, while at the same time problematizing it. Although his work displays a belief in the contemporary relevance of painting, Ghenie seeks to delve into the conceptual tenets that have undermined the legitimacy of the medium. The artist revisits key moments in the history of modernism that prompted the declaration of the death of painting. He invokes the figure of Duchamp – the foremost enemy of paint and colour who rendered the painting obsolete through the introduction of the readymade into the field of art – as well as the first International Dada exhibition in Berlin which exhibited signs declaring that art was dead.

Adrian Ghenie (born in 1977), lives and works in Cluj and Berlin

Recent group exhibitions: Liverpool Biennale (2008), Prague Biennale 4 (2009)

Recent solo exhibitions: The Flight Into Egypt , Nolan Judin Berlin (2008), Darkness for an Hour , Haunch of Venison London (2009); in 2010 a solo show will be organized at the S.M.A.K. museum in Ghent (Belgium)

Acknowledgements: Haunch of Venison London , Nicodim Gallery, Nolan Judin Berlin , Galeria Plan B, Tim Van Laere Gallery

With the support of: BRD Groupe Societe Generale, Hotel Novotel, Murfatlar, Martini Fine Art Service

Media partners: Igloo, Arhitectura, 24 Fun, feeder.ro, rfi, Cocor Media Channel

SZABOLCS KISSPAL - One by 1

26.11.2009 - 31.01.2010

Curator: Raluca Velisar

One by 1 is the first solo exhibition of Szabolcs KissPál in Bucharest, and presents works that survey his entire career so far. Even though we can identify a difference between the lyrical style of his first works and a more critical manner in the latest it is too difficult to organize the themes explored by the artist, because they interconnect or overlap in each period of creation: the mediation of reality through a technological perspective, the duality visible-invisible, positive-negative, the two appearances of the same thing, the relationship between power and representation, or the attitude of the individual in front of history, society and politics.

KissPál manipulates the visible world by minimal and reductionist means to construct a clear sysem of metaphors that reveal the fragility / relativism of the human perception and vision, the tension between similarity and difference, the simultaneous duality of thinking and seeing, as formulated by Wittgenstein. His works are in general perfectly arranged, formally and analytically (with the exception of the video Shards of Glass 2003, where the unpredicted configures the meaning). The videos refer to history of optics’ methods of constructing the illusion of reality or to the iconic manipulation of the nowadays’ digitized images; the installations combine simple elements in a very sophisticated way and they usually investigate the dual and paradoxical condition of reality.

The image manipulation has the role of analyzing and understanding the complexity of perception, and even its vulnerability. It can be structured by the multiple points of view (The Dance 2001) or by the perspectivic representation of spatiality (Elsewhere 1999). It can be limited to the visible part of reality that induces the vision modeled by sensations (Edging 2003) or it can be mediated by subjective interpretations that make appeal both to visual (Rever RO 2000) and subjective (Shards of Glass) memory. An edited found footage, an entirely manipulated image through editing techniques or the recording of a live event; in all these situations the resulting image would be susceptible of reflecting the relationship between power (be it ideological, official or personal) and representation.

Contemporary technologies allow the creation of perfect copies and the global politics enforce the standardization of the consumerist practices. The repetitively duplication of a series of objects in Silicon Valse installation (2001) doesn’t have the function to organize the vision but to disrupt the created image. The reproduction procedure is not applied to the objects themselves, but to the effects of a series of phenomena, which normally cannot action identically on them (indistinguishable broken windows, matching broken flower pots, identically burnt candles). Not excluding the important issue of mechanical reproduction and its consequential debates about authorship, copy versus original, real or virtual prototype, KissPál remembers us about the fact that these serial products don’t have an identity but just an existence. No matter how unique is the procedure of objects’ conception and in spite of the utopist standardization of the politics implemented on certain segments of population, the external elements (unexpected) or internal (of identity nature) act in different ways. The installation One by 1 (2005), that reproduces a device, usually used for the accurate measuring of the things that are to be produced or systematized (a meter split in centimeters) contains a destabilizing element: 1 is the only number reproduced in place of all the other subsequent. Order and absolute unity, or, on the contrary, relativisation and multiplicity; conflict or consensus, individual or collective…

The importance of the individual action on the collective history comes out in the Utopia Battery installation (2008) with the interaction between the visitor and a symbolic element: the flag. This is not a flag that denotes the national identity as the one used in Rever (RO) - where the colors symbolizing and maintaining this idea are reversed for a metaphorical reevaluation of its still evocative potential nowadays - but one that “accumulates” the history and the ideologies. Even though the engagement of the visitor with the red flag is a deconstructive one (after the movement’s detection the flag begins to unsew itself) the participation process is more valuable than a static, distant or contemplative position. Ideologies are created by individual actions and contributions and that’s why the approval and reiteration of the symbols it promotes are the responsibility of every participant to the history making.

Szabolcs KissPál (b. 1967, Tg. Mures), Lives and works in Budapest.

Selected personal exhibitions: 2007 The Dance, Turner Contemporary, Margate (GB) | 2006 From a ball to a holster, Galerie van Gelder, Amsterdam | 2001 Silicon valse, Francia Intézet, Budapest | 1999 Breathless, Artec London, etc.
Selected group exhibitions: 2009 New acquisitions.Rarely seen works, Ludwig Museum, Budapest | 2008 What’s Up?, Mucsarnok, Budapest | 2007 Say it isn’t so, Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen | 2006 Re_Dis_Trans, Apexart, New York; Private Matter?, Mucsarnok, Budapest | 2003 Aura, Millenáris Park, Budapest; Poesis, Mûcsarnok, Budapest; Prague Biennial | 2002 Vision, Mucsarnok, Budapest; Unstable Narratives, HartwareKunstverein, Dortmund | 2001 Climate, Mucsarnok, Budapest; Context, 49. Venice Biennial Romanian Pavillon | 1993 Ex Oriente Lux, Sala Dalles, Bucuresti, etc.

With the support of: BRD Groupe Societe Generale, Hotel Novotel, Murfatlar
Media partners: Igloo, Arhitectura, 24 Fun, feeder.ro, rfi, Cocor Media Channel
Special thanks: Szent István Király Múzeum

Irina Botea
A moment of citizenship

curator: Maria Ines Rodriguez
presents: Ruxandra Balaci
22.10.2009 - 24.01.2010

OPENING: Thursday 22.10.09, 19h00

a co-production Jeu de Paume Paris and MNAC Bucharest

In her work Irina Botea tries to reinterpret the images of History produced by media, and to develop sympathy with the more or less active protagonists of historical situations to which our only access is now through the media.

This exhibition was part of the second edition of the annual Satellite programme in Jeu de Paume (Paris, june -september 2009), featuring two videos: Auditions for a Revolution (2006), and a new work, jointly produced by MNAC and Jeu de Paume, Before a National Anthem (2009), a work devoted to the creation of a new Romanian national anthem.

MNAClab - Martin Bricelj Baraga / MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art, Ljubljana

presentation and artist talk: Tuesday, 17.11, 19h00

Martin Bricelj Baraga is a media artist and a cultural activist. He has exhibited and performed in many galleries and spaces worldwide: ICA in London, Sonar in Barcelona, Columbia University in New York, Centro cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires, Kunsthaus Graz, Kaapelithas in Helsinki, Museums Quartier in Vienna and many others.

He is also the director of Spring Festival in Ljubljana (Festival of advanced music and related arts) and he initiated MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art – a network of AiR studios & platform for transitory, live and public art.

MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art is an unique platform dedicated to the research and production of the Transitory, Experimental and Live Art forms. MoTA is also the first regular artist- in-residency program in Slovenia, with the purpose to give a living and working environment to foreign artists in Ljubljana.


MNAC partner: BRD Groupe Societe Generale
Sponsors: Hotel Novotel, Murfatlar
Media partners: Igloo, Arhitectura, 24 Fun, rfi, feeder.ro, Cocor Media Channel

INK NOT INK. Contemporary Chinese Ink and Wash Art Exhibition

opening: 03.11.2009, 18h00

03 - 17.11. 2009

Artists: Wang Tiande, Shi Guo, Liu Qinghe, Liu Zijian, Zhu Zhengen, Li Jun, Li Huasheng, Li Bangyao, Li Xiaoxuan, Li Jin, Zhang Xiaotao, Shao Ge, Gu Wenda, Zhang Yu, Zou Jianping, Yan Yinhong, Qiu Anxiong, Wu Yi, Shang Yang, Chen Shaoxiong, Yang Guoxin, Zhou Jingxin, Zheng Qiang, Zhou Yong Nan Xi, Hu Youben, Hong Yao, Tao Aimin, Liang Quan, Yuan Xiaofang, Huang Yihan, Cao Baoquan, Dong Xiaoming, Peng Wei, Yan Kai, Dai Guangyu, Wei Ligang, Wei Qingji

Producer: Zhao Shaohua
Executive producer : Chen Wei
Curator: Lu Hong
Academic Commitee : Pi Daojian, Liu Xiaochun, Sun Zhenhua, Zhang Xinjian, Fan Di'an, Zhao Li, Jia Fangzhou, Yin Shuangxi, Lu Hong

Under the auspices of: Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China, and Ministry of Culture, Religious Affairs and National Patrimony of Romania
Organized by: Shenzhen Art Museum, and MNAC

With the support of: Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sport and Tourism, Shenzhen Foundation of Culture Promotion and Development, Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Romania

HORIA DAMIAN

22.09 - 03.11. 2009
OPENING: Tuesday, September, 22nd, 2009, 18h30

Event organized under the Patronage of the President of Romania, Mr Traian Basescu

Organized by: The Ministry of Culture, Religious Affairs, and National Patrimony, MNAC Bucharest, Embassy of Romania in France, Artiliad Gallery Paris

Partner: BRD Societe Generale
Sponsors: EADS, Bog'art, Hotel Novotel, Murfatlar
Media partners: igloo, arhitectura, 24FUN, rfi, Cocor Media Channel

AURELIA MIHAI
THE SOCIAL BEING OF TRUTH

03.06 - 30.08.2009
OPENING: Wednesday, June 3rd 2009, 19h30

curator: Oana Tanase

video still: "...and the Moldavian one", 31'18", 2008

How do we perceive the distance between the truth in documentary film and the documentary value of any filmic production? How do we, as spectators, apprehend the confrontation between the space of the documentary and that of fiction? Does “objectivity” completely disappear when the fantastical comes into play? Where do we dig out for the “constructed realities”? Has the documentary as a genre come to speak about a fragmentary and unstable ground that is private and subjective, about remembrance and impression, about devotedness and ideology? Does it even matter if the “event” has or has not taken place, since the politics of “representation” and “interpretation” is what actually carries the weight?

THE SOCIAL BEING OF TRUTH presents seven video works made by Aurelia Mihai between 2002 and 2008. They are part of a consistent portfolio that – with two exceptions – has not been shown in Romania until now. The selection seeks to illuminate the mechanisms and strategies employed by Aurelia Mihai in her work: from the investigation of the private space to that of the social disparities and anachronisms (“This is the Hour”, 2002 and “From Time to Time”, 2003); from the fixed camera recording the discontinuities in daily life (“The Day. It Begins with the Cock and Ends with the Dogs”, 2005) to the ambivalent moves of the dervish dance (“In the Open Air”, 2007); from the aesthetic of the pseudo-documentary “Valley of Dreamers” (2004) – in which what is “discovered” are not the treasures of the ancient but the Las Vegas egyptomania and the movie props of Cecil B. DeMille's  “Ten Commandments” from 1923 – to the warm and empathic perspective adopted in “…and the Moldavian one” (2008). The video tells the story of destinies separated by the river Prut and the history and thus comments on laws, habits and transactions, which are deemed relevant to the understanding of the relation between art and society. 

Aurelia Mihai's video work has been the recipient of numerous prizes and scholarships that include the Video Art Awards Bremen (1997); the ESTAR Scholarship from the Institute for Electronic Arts, Alfred University, New York and the Villa Aurora Scholarship, Los Angeles (2001); the EMARE Scholarship Hull Time Based Arts UK (2004) and the Villa Massimo Rome Scholarship (2007). 

Her works have been exhibited internationally at the K21 Düsseldorf, Gropius Bau Berlin, Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Chelsea Art Museum – New York, Galerie Anita Beckers Frankfurt, Museum Goch – Germany, Marburger Kunstverein – Germany, Kunsthalle Bremen – Germany, Centre International d'Art Contemporain de Pont Aven – France, Centrum Beeldende Kunst Gelderland Arnhem – Netherlands, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia - Madrid, Robert Else Gallery – Sacramento, California – USA, Selby Gallery Sarasota, Florida – USA, FUTURA – Centre For Contemporary Art, Prague, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art – Riga, Periferic 8 - Biennial for Contemporary Art – Iasi, Romania, and will be present at the Centre of Contemporary Art and the Nature World, in Plymouth, UK.

partener MNAC: BRD -  Groupe Societe Generale
sponsors : Novotel, Murfatlar, Anthon Berg
partner: Square Media
media partners: igloo, arhitectura, 24 Fun, Radio France International, Cocor Media Channel, feeder.ro

Disobedience. An ongoing video archive

May 16 - August 30, 2009
opening: Saturday 16.05.2009, 20h00

Curated by: Marco Scotini

Assistant curators: Andris Brinkmanis, Matteo Lucchetti
Artists: atelier d'architecture autogérée, ARSNTV - A Revolução Não Será Televisionada, Beth Bird, Bijari, Dodo Brothers (Andrea Ruggeri / Giancarlo Vitali Ambrogio), Elefante Coletivo, Frente 3 de Fevereiro, KanalB, Grupo de Arte Callejero, Black Audio Film Collective, Department of Space and Land Reclamation, Critical Art Ensemble , Etceterà, Marcelo Expósito, Harun Farocki / Andrei Ujica, Alberto Grifi, Ashley Hunt, Non–Governmental Control Commission, OUT (Mariette Schiltz / Bert Theis), Park Fiction, Post Programmed City Territory (PPC-T), Radek Community, Oliver Ressler (with Zanny Begg), Paula Roush (msdm), Paola Salerno, Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Dmitry Vilensky, Wayruro.

Disobedience is an archive and a video station about the relationship between artistic practice and civil and social disobedience. Founded in 2005, the project is a guide to geography of recent protest, from the social struggles in Italy in 1977 to anti-globalisation actions before and after Seattle. In particular, Disobedience is an investigation into the practices of art activism emerging from the fall of the Soviet block and the events of the 9/11 that today are developing on a global scale.

ZOMBIE ZOMBIE LIVE AT MNAC

Friday, June 19th, 2009

22h30 Camil
00h00 Zombie Zombie Live
01h00 Cos Mir

Fragility of Being. Works from the Collection of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg.

May 12 - August 16, 2009
opening: Tuesday 12.05.2009, 19h00

Curator: Margit Zuckriegl

Artists: Iris Andraschek, Sabine Bitter / Helmut Weber, Guenter Brus, Carola Dertnig, Johannes Deutsch, Peter Dressler, Valie Export , Bernhard Fuchs, Seiichi Furuya, Dorothea Golz, Manfred Grubl, Ilse Haider, Ralf Hoedt, Frantz Hubmann, Paul Kranzler, Paul Albert Leitner, Michael Mauracher, Inge Morath, Michaela Moscouw, Hanns Otte , Constanze Ruhm, Eva Schlegel, Werner Schrodl, Rudolf Schwarzkogler , Otmar Thormann, Harry Weber , Manfred Willmann, Anita Witek

The state of terror induced by the Nazi regime, the threat of globalization, the shifting of values, life in a more and more unfriendly environment, the contemporary anxieties and the effort to elope them are the causes of this fragility of being.  The exhibition comprises photography and video works by 33 artists from the photography collection of the Republic of Austria, hosted by the Museum of Modern Art Salzburg.

Parteners: Austrian Cultural Forum, Museum der Moderne Salzburg

Dorin Stefan
Between pickles and paranoia

28.05 - 11.06.2009
opening: Thursday, May 28th 2009, 7:30 pm

Catalysts within the installation: Alexandru Andries, Ion Cotenescu, Doina Levintza

launching of the book (Igloo profile): Dorin Stefan, Carte de bucate de arhitectura

introduced by: Augustin Ioan

The installation is an interface between the book and the public. The pickles are the metaphorical link between the cook book, architecture and a "european law" like the one establishing the dimention of the cucumber . It provides an opportunity to reflect upon the ideas of local, regional, and global. [...] Paranoia is related to "laws", but also to architecture and to the architect who can become paranoiac, after working so close to power. (Dorin Stefan)


partener MNAC: BRD -  Groupe Societe Generale
sponsors : Novotel, Murfatlar
media partners: igloo, arhitectura, 24 Fun, Cocor Media Channel, feeder.ro

AV DUTCH

Night of the Museums at MNAC

The 4 th edition of the Museum's Night will take place satturday, 16 of May 2009, between 8PM and 5AM with new exhibitions, screenings, installations and a party on the terrace. The entrance is free.
(MNAC will be closed on 16th of May, until 8PM)

Program:

20h00 Opening: Disobedience. An ongoing video achive, curator Marco Scotini / 2nd Floor

20h00 – 05h00 Exhibitions on view:
Vanished cultural spaces / groundfloor
Fragility of Being. Works from the collection of Museum der Moderne Salzburg, curator Margit Zuckriegl/ 1st floor
Shedevil on Tour/ 3rd floor

22h00-05h00 Future Shorts, screening/MNAC's entrance

22h00-05h00 Lightbox sequencer 2.0 by Jonas Vorwerk, interactive installation/ 4th floor

23h00-05h00 Party on the terrace: Bogdan, Monici, Giuser, cos mir

She Devil on Tour
opening: March 30th, 18h30

March 30 - May 31, 2009

Curators: Antonia Alampi, Simona Brunetti, Daniela Cascella, Gaia Cianfanelli, Dobrila Denegri, Tiziana Di Caro, Giulia Di Costanzo, Eleonora Farina, Maria Garzia, Maria Cristina Giusti, Caterina Iaquinta, Orsola Mileti, Cristina Natalicchio, Manuela Pacella, Cristiana Perrella, Elena Giulia Rossi, sybin, SSMM, Chiara Vigliotti.

Artists: Alice Anderson, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Lilibeth Cuenca, Kelly Dobson, VALIE EXPORT, Nooshin Farhid, Oriana Fox, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Julia Kläring, Lucia Lamberti, Signe Lillemark, Loredana Longo, Annalisa Macagnino, Jenny Marketou, Amalgul Menlibayeva, Sabrina Muzi, Trine Lise Nedreaas, Lina Pallotta, Nordine Sajot, Erica Scourti, Federica Tavian Ferrighi, Mathilde Ter Heijne, Maddalena Vantaggi, Julia Weidner, Rona Yefman & Tanja Schlander, Mary Zygouri.

The curators Dobrila Denegri, Cristiana Perrella and Chiara Vigliotti will be present at the opening.

Courtesy: Arndt & Partner (Berlin / Z ü rich), Galerie Davide Gallo (Berlin), Galerie La B.A.N.K. (Paris), Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst - Montevideo/Time Based Arts (Amsterdam) , Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani (Milan), Francescopantaleone ArteContemporanea (Palermo).

Thanks to: Cristina Agostini, Gianmaria Mazzeo, Chiara Vigliotti

Olafur Eliasson video by Southern Mothers
selected by: Ruxandra Balaci

March 05 – April 03, 2009

Southern Mothers is Russ Armstrong and John Dixon.
Southern Mothers are actors, writers and improvisers.
Southern Mothers now live in New York City.
Southern Mothers is also a collection of critical essays by prominent southern literary scholars, which examines the significance of motherhood in southern fiction.
Southern Mothers have this critical attitude towards contemporary events intensely covered by the American mass media.
Southern Mothers rhymed on a wide variety of subjects from Tracy Letts, to
Dear Gossip Girl, Hokey Mom / Pitbull, or Olafur Eliassson (A Milli Remix).

Olafur Eliasson is a world renowned Danish-Icelandic artist.
Olafur Eliasson got international fame after his exhibition The Weather Project at the Tate Modern in 2003.
Olafur Eliasson created some waterfalls in New York in 2008 (in the same time with a huge retrospective of his work at MoMA and P.S. 1), praised and also contested by the media and the general public.
Olafur Eliasson's Waterfalls are presented with a lot of irony in the video, in rimes about the status of the “creator” or the economy of contemporary art.
Olafur Eliasson is invited to present a light installation in MNAC Bucharest later this year.

Swiss Design in Hollywood

March 5 - April 18, 2009

Artists: H. R. Giger, John Howe, Christian L. Scheurer, Deak Ferrand, Natasha Devaud, Nicolas Imhof, Brigitte Wuest, Silvio Aebischer, Simon Christen, Nadja Bonacina, Simon Otto, Alex Ongaro

Production: Pro Helvetia , Swiss Arts Council, Zürich
www.prohelvetia.ch

Concept: Maison d'Ailleurs, Yverdon-les-Bains
www.ailleurs.ch

Swiss Design in Hollywood retraces the work and impact of Swiss artists in the areas of design and digital imagery in international film production as well as in video games. Today, many of these artists are working on some of the most publicly-recognised projects (including animated films) and are leaving an enduring mark on popular culture, although their contribution is largely unknown. Swiss Design in Hollywood gives an historical perspective on little known or underrated artistic techniques and practices. The exhibition also aims to emphasise the personal influence of particular Swiss designers and illustrators – whether they work independently or for the big special effects studios – on the aesthetics of film and video game production, without overlooking their personal creations.

The event is supported by Swiss Embassy in Bucharest and MNAC.

MNAC Partner: BRD
Sponsors: Domeniile Samburesti, Nestle
Media Partners: Igloo, Arhitectura, Republik, feeder, 24Fun

A FOREST OF SCULPTURES. THE SIMON SPIERER COLLECTION

December 11, 2008 - April 05, 2009

Artists: Constantin BRANCUSI, Julio GONZALES , Hans ARP , Max ERNST , Andre MASSON , Mauro REGGIANI , Henry MOORE , Lucio FONTANA , Alberto GIACOMETTI , Fausto MELOTTI , Germaine RICHIER , Barbara HEPWORTH , Isamu NOGUCHI , Max BILL, Balthasar LOBO , Louise BOURGEOIS , Alicia PENALBA , Kenneth ARMITAGE , CESAR , Joannis AVRAMIDIS , Richard STANKIEWICZ , William TURNBULL , Marta PAN , Anthony CARO , Vassilakis TAKIS , Herbert PETERS , Arnaldo POMODORO , Augustin CARDENAS , Michael CROISSANT , Daniel SPOERRI , Gunther UECKER , Bruno ROMEDA , Valeriano TRUBBIANI , Graham WILLIAMS , Vera ROHM , Jean-Louis PERROT , Laurent DE PURY , Sebastien KITO , Harald FERNAGU , Andy WARHOL

The Collection. The Collection Simon Spierer comprises 40 works of highly distinguished artists, from Early Modern such as Constantin Brancusi, Max Ernst, and Alberto Giacometti to Contemporary Art, e.g. Günther Uecker, Graham Williams, and Vera Röhm, to mention only a few of the well known artists – a fascinating journey throughout the world of twentieth-century sculpture. In the 1990s Spierer sells his extensive collections of paintings in order to completely focus on – mainly vertical – sculptures. In his house in Geneva he assembles them so closely together that the idea of a “forest of sculptures” is born. The viewer experiences this “forest” along imaginary “paths”: each sculpture is completely on its own and at the same time actively corresponds with the sculptures surrounding it.

The Collector. Simon Spierer's (1926 – 2005) enthusiasm for art starts early: in the 1950s he already acquires his first paintings. As internationally-active tobacconist he often travels and soon he deals not only with tobacco but also with artworks. In Boissano, Italy, he establishes an artist's colony, where he generously provides studios and housing for the artists in residence. After his wife passed away in 1994 he closes their gallery in Geneva and sells his enormous collection of paintings in order to fully focus on sculpture. Collecting sculpture is far more unusual than painting. This is exactly what challenges Spierer. Thanks to him and the Hessische Landesmuseum Darmstadt this high quality collection can now be shown to the international public.

Organized by: Institut fur Kulturaustausch, MNAC, Hessian State Museum Darmstadt
Sponsors: Banca Romaneasca, Samburesti, TNG
Media partners: Romania Libera, Jurnalul National

Oberhausen on Tour / screening
Saturday 21st &Sunday 22nd of March 2009, 17h00

The European tour of the Oberhausen international short film festival – one of the first and best known of its kind – presents to a wider audience the most significant films of the last two editions. The MNAC programme includes five screenings as follows: MuVi Award 2007/2008, Best of German Competition, Best of International and German Competition (35mm) and Best of Artist Film and Video, Best of International Competition.

RE:akt!
Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting

www.reakt.org

curator: Domenico Quaranta

Panel /discussion: Thursday 22 January, 18:00
Exhibition opening: Thursday, 22 January,19:00

curator: Domenico Quaranta

22nd of January - 12th of March 2009

Artists: Lucas Bambozzi, Vaginal Davis, Quentin Drouet, Janez Jansa, Janez Jansa, Janez Jansa, Irwin, Eva and Franco Mattes (aka 0100101110101101.ORG), OHO group, SilentCell Network (Mare Bulc, Janez Jansa, Bojana Kunst, Igor Stromajer)

“RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting” is the world preview of the works realized in the last three years within the platform “RE:akt!” produced by the Slovenian cultural institution Aksioma.

During recent years the term re-enactment and the practices it refers to have enjoyed increasing success in the artistic context. On one hand, the success of re-enactment appears to be connected to a parallel, vigorous return to performance art, both as a genre practiced by the new generations, and as an artistic practice with its own historicization. On the other hand the term re-enactment accompanies two phenomena that at least at first glance have very little in common: re-staging artistic performances of the past, and revisiting, in performance form, “real” events – be they linked to history or current affairs, past or present.

“RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting” tries both to research on the complexity of this concept and to get rid of it, approaching re-enactment not merely as “live action role-playing” or “living history” but rather as a strategy for cultural critique, analysis and artistic expression.

On Thursday, January 22 , MNAC will host a panel discussion featuring Domenico Quaranta, curator of the exhibition; Janez Jansa, artist and director of Aksioma; and the italian theoretician Antonio Caronia, co-editor of the book RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting , to be published on March 2009 (with contributions by Rod Dickinson, Jennifer Allen, Jan Verwoert, Antonio Caronia and Domenico Quaranta).

On March 25, the exhibition will travel to SKUC gallery, Ljubljana ( Slovenia ) and then further to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka ( Croatia ).

SS-XXX | Die Frau Helga, Janez Janša / photo: George Vasilache

SS-XXX | Die Frau Helga, Janez Janša / photo: George Vasilache

The Day São Paulo Stopped, Lucas Bambozzi / photo: George Vasilache

Das KAPITAL, Janez Janša / photo: George Vasilache

Synthetic Performances, Eva & Franco Mattes / photo: George Vasilache

installation view / photo: George Vasilache

Mount Triglav on Mount Triglav, Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez Janša / photo: George Vasilache

Il porto dell'amore, Janez Janša / photo: George Vasilache

C'était un rendez-vous (déja vu), Janez Janša and Quentin Drouet / photo: George Vasilache

C'était un rendez-vous (déja vu) - detail, Janez Janša and Quentin Drouet / photo: George Vasilache

Slovene National Theatre, Janez Janša / photo: George Vasilache

Produced by: Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana

With the support of : European Cultural Foundation, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the Municipality of Ljubljana

Thanks: Institut Français de Bucarest, Irwin, Claude Lelouch - LES FILMS 13, Moderna galerija Ljubljana, MGLC - International Centre of Graphic Arts Ljubljana, RPS d.o.o.

MNAC partener: BRD
Sponsors: Anthon Berg, Murfatlar
Media partners: 24Fun, Igloo, Arhitectura, Republik, feeder.ro

MNAC and NAI / Netherlands Architecture Institute
Present on Tuesday, 10th of March 2009, 17.00

Urbanology – Crash courses on a “science” in crisis

A debate about the PUBLIC SPACE in a larger context of European Identity

Participants:

Ole Bouman, Director NAI– moderator (NL)
Nanne de Ru, architect, Powerhouse Company (NL)
Hans van Houwelingen, artist (NL)

Augustin Ioan, prof. Phd architect – moderator (RO)
Stefan Ghenciulescu, architect (RO)
Ciprian Mihali, philosopher (RO)

Participants will be welcomed by
H.E. Jaap Werner – Ambassador of the Royal Netherlands Embassy
Ruxandra Balaci - Artistic Director of MNAC

The event is supported by the Netherlands Architecture Fund, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, and the magazine A10

Special thanks: Caroline Seebregts, Cultural Attaché, Dutch Embassy; Fanny Smelik, Coordinator International Projects NAI; Joyce Hanssen, Co-operator International Projects NAI; Magda Radu, curator MNAC

The theme of the public space will be re-discussed during the series of events organized between 14-28 of May for the Bucharest Annual of Architecture 2009- Architects and Public Space. Over a period of two weeks, the city will be both at the heart of heated debates and a creative melting-pot for architects and artists alike: conferences, public debates, exhibitions and urban happenings centered around this year's theme, will all be aimed at providing a fresh architectural perspective on a possible Bucharest .

The Annual of Architecture is organized by OAR Bucharest in collaboration with Igloo media and MNAC.

Ole Bouman – Debates on Tour Bucharest

Anyone who is internationally active in the sphere of architecture leads a life of luxury. It is the luxury that people all over the world understand what you are about. Wherever you go, they know what it means to be occupied with building – with walls, doors, windows, facades, roofs and basements. It is also clear to anyone that while you are building those necessary elements of survival it is possible to show a little extra ambition and try to make something beautiful. Those who opt for a higher level of abstraction and are involved in things like “cities”, “housing” or “infrastructure”, are similarly aware how rare it is for people to misunderstand the object of their concern. The vocabulary of architecture is a universal one. Building is omnipresent, and to build something special is a universal ambition. Wherever you go, architecture gives you a free ticket to the dialogue. The salient exception is when you are concerned with – of all things – public space. In that case you will notice that you are touching on a concept that is far from universal. Wherever you go, the notion of public space is expressed and interpreted differently. In one culture public space may be the space where you go to meet other people, and in another it may simply be synonymous with outdoors. Sometimes it is where you go to do business, and sometimes it is the place where ancient rituals take place. None of these versions is the same as the original concept. They chime with the local mentality but do not capture the essence. To get closest to the original concept, there is only one place to go: back to where public space was invented, Europe . That is also where a few other typically European abstractions coexist: those of the nation, the community, the economy, the individual and the culture. From Athens to Zouteland, all over the Old World , the necessity of these concepts was once beyond question. City, democracies, citizens, individuals: they all need a certain stimulus to make the most of their capacities. And for over 2,000 years that stimulus has been synonymous with public space. But is going back to “ Europe ” really still possible? Does that Europe still exist? Now that the continent is engaged in an unprecedented process of integration, several longstanding European values are at stake. Public space is by no means the least of these. People warily watch developments in countries like China and cities like Dubai , which are prospering despite showing little regard for public space. Measures are taken in the interests of security and these measures conflict with the criteria of publicness. Zones for collective use are designed but these are managed by private interests. Forces which could be regarded as enemies of classic public space are manifest: vandalism, terrorism, segregation, urban thematization, prescribed experience scenarios, total surveillance, mobile communication and so on. If public space is something typically European, is this new world really still Europe ? The questions are urgent and more than legitimate. At the same time it is evident that the notion of public space is attracting more interest than ever. If you peruse the entries for the European Prize for Public Space, you will observe that European designers still design the outdoors as a theater for European civilization. And if you follow the studies carried out for My Public Space , you will notice how new channels are continually being found for the internal European urban dialogue on our shared future. The cornucopia of fresh ideas is still being deployed to enhance the quality of our collective urban life. European public space is anything but moribund. It's alive and kicking.

MNAC Partner: BRD, Congress Rental
Sponsors: Murfatlar, Novotel
Media Partners: Igloo, Arhitectura, Republik, B24

FABIEN VERSCHAERE. XMAS PARTY

curator: Ruxandra Balaci

December 17, 2008 - February 28, 2009

BERLIN - Symphony of a Great City, 1927
Director: Walter Ruttmann/ Sound: Sillyconductor/ Concept: Ana Szel

November, 30 2008, 19:00h

Partener : BRD
Media partners: igloo, feeder, rfi, arhitectura, 24fun, republik

OKOSANU LIVE A/V (PL)
AUDIO-VIDEO PERFORMANCE

November, 21 2008, 19:00h

Organizers: MNAC, Institutul Polonez
Partener : BRD
Media partners: igloo, feeder, rfi, arhitectura, 24fun, republik

ROMAN TOLICI. IT COULD HAPPEN TOMORROW
Curator: Oana Tanase

September, 18 - November, 30 2008

Opening and catalogue launching: Thursday, 18th of September / 19hoo / 2nd floor

"As far as I am concerned photography is a prior experience, one that is recorded and stored. It becomes an exact document which encompasses my point of view, my participation and a generous share of my personal thoughts. It is true that most of the time a carry around my photo camera and I see it as a sketchbook or an easel displaying some plein-air painting or a very generous muse and that is because I have a strong belief that everything - subject, content, form - is within immediate reach. Wouldn't it be absurd to call into question photography's superiority over painting in reproducing the external reality? For me, the effort of painting from photographs is not meaningful because I want to achieve fidelity to the outside world but because through painting I try to understand the image per se; I <remake> the image by visual contact. This painting method forces me to reconstruct each object <out of nothing> and it enables me to understand and fully grasp the form and meditate on the content. I thereby translate in my own language the world as reflected in photography, converting it into an iconic message." (Roman Tolici)

ONE PLAY, 2008


IT COULD HAPPEN TOMORROW presents works extracted from three distinct series - Park, Barber's Shop and Action (painting and drawing) - which make visible the artist's particular working method as well as his recurrent themes. The curator's intention is not that of offering a retrospective overview of the artist's career, but rather distills the ethical ideas guiding Roman Tolici in his studio. Painting is an accomplice of photography, revealing the artist's contemplative mood in observing the world: he depicts reevaluations of collective or private histories, errancies and unfulfilled promises.

ADDENDA, a bilingual catalogue comprising an interview between the curator and the artist will be launched at the opening.

On this occasion, a limited series of postcards Barber's Shop is produced with the support of Leo Burnett Romania.

Sponsors: Murfatlar, Anthon Berg, salt & pepper catering
Media partners: igloo, feeder, rfi, arhitectura, 24fun, republik

EL PAPEL DE LA FOTOGRAFIA.
Spanish photography featured in 3 magazines:
AFAL, Nueva Lente, and Photo Vision. 1950 - 1990
October, 16 - November, 14 2008

Co-organizer: Cervantes Institute Bucharest

Media partners: igloo, rfi, arhitectura, 24fun, republik

Andrei Cadere: Peinture sans fin
September, 25 - November, 25 2008

Concept: Karola Graesslin, Astrid Ihle si Bernard Marcelis
Curator: Magda Radu

September, 25, 15:00 - 18:00
International Symposium: In and Out of the Territory
Speakers: Sanda Agalidi (RO), Astrid Ihle (D), Bernard Marcelis (Be), Mihai Oroveanu (RO), Magda Radu (RO), Ioana Vlasiu (RO)

September, 25, 19:00
Opening

Andrei Cadere (1934 - 1978) is considered one of the most important protagonists of conceptual art. The artist left Romania and moved to Paris in 1967 and he gradually established himself through the tenacity with which he forced the limits of the art system, seeking its acceptance: at first he infiltrated himself at openings and events without being invited, carrying with him his emblematic wooden bar, and would later become a recognized figure in artistic circles, exhibiting and presenting his works in important institutions.
The rounded wooden bar - composed of segments of different colors and assembled according to an elaborate system of permutations that included an error each time - accompanied the artist whenever he moved around. The wooden bar cannot be detached from the performative aspect of Cadere's practice or from his idea of expanding the limits of art beyond the walls of the museum or the gallery. His carefully planned urban "promenades", his meetings and conversations with ordinary people or personalities, his conferences explaining the algorithm of permutations used in the making of the wooden bars - all these elements make up the image of an artist always "in action", who deeply acknowledged the inextricable unity of aesthetics and politics, of art and life.

The retrospective exhibition Andre Cadere - Peinture sans fin was conceived by Karola Graesslin, Astrid Ihle and Bernard Marcelis and it was first on show at Kunsthalle Baden-Baden from October 2007 to January 2008; the exhibition was subsequently presented at Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht. For the MNAC presentation curator Magda Radu reshaped its format and display.

The international symposium organized by MNAC aims to provide various ways of approaching and interpreting Cadere's working method as well as his role in what was termed 'institutional critique'. On the other hand, the contributions addressing the artist's formative years in Romania will provide insights into a lesser known period of his life and work and will maybe shed a new light on Cadere's subsequent artistic development. The interventions to the symposium will be later published in a catalogue edited by MNAC.

Sponsors: Murfatlar, Anthon Berg, salt & pepper catering
Media partners: igloo, feeder, rfi, arhitectura, 24fun, republik

MICHEL BUHRER
BUCHAREST, A CANNIBAL CITY

October, 02 - November, 10 2008

opening: October, 02, 19:00h

Leonard Ursachi. Paris-Constantinople
August, 01 - 31 2008

Galeria Etaj 3/4, Teatrul National Bucuresti, Bd. N Balcescu nr. 2

Alvaro Siza. 54 projects
Curator: Carlos Castanheira

June, 5 - August, 31 2008

opening and book launch: June, 5 / 19h00/ 3rd floor

Organizers: igloomedia, MNAC
Parteners: Order of Romanian Arhitects, Union of Romanian Architects, Primaria Sectorului 1, Bucharest Branch of theOrder of Romanian Architects, Audi
Media Partenrs: 24 Fun, Re:PUBLIK, Igloo, Arhitectura

ANIMATIONS / FICTIONS
Works from the FNAC Collections / Fond National d'Art Contemporain, Paris
Curator: Ruxandra Balaci
Co-organizer: Claude Allemand-Cosneau, director FNAC
January - August 2008

Press conference & presentation: Tuesday, January 22, 17h30 - Auditorium
Opening: Tuesday, January 22, 19h30 - Ground Floor

Parallel event : L'enclos du pantin, Annette Messager
French Institut Bucharest / opening Tuesday, January 22, 12h00

Artists: Boris Achour, Pierre Bismuth, Wim Delvoye, Gérard Deschamps, Erró, Pierre Huyghe, Bernard Joisten, Pierre Joseph, William Kentridge, Koo Jeong-A, Suzanne Lafont, Bertrand Lavier, François Letaillieur, Mac Adams, David Mach, Petra Mrzyk & Jean François Moriceau, Raymond Pettibon, Alain Séchas, Jim Shaw, Sandy Skoglund, Fabien Verschaere, Wang Du

Wang Du, Défilé, 2000

exhibition view : Bertrand Lavier, Bernard Joisten and Sandy Skoglund

exhibition view

exhibition view : Boris Achour and Suzanne Lafont

Raymond Pettibon, Sans titre, 1984 - 1986

David Mach, Mickey Matchhead, 1994

Alain Sechas, Professeur suicide, 1995

exhibition view

Animations/fictions presents curatorial research over a group of works from the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain that have been consigned to the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest. The exhibition spotlights different ways in which comic strips and cartoons have been used by French and international contemporary artists.

Its guiding principle is how cartoons have appeared in citational form and using different approaches: initially in the Pop Art style before becoming, at a later stage (1990s-2005) and in a context removed from animation, an explicit source of inspiration. The featured artists express highly sophisticated concepts in an easily understandable language. By refering to contemporary concepts into images, borrowing childhood iconography, or creating images inspired by Walt Disney or mangas, beyond their connotations of an all-pervasive subculture, mass culture and media in today's globalised world, all these images remain powerful vectors for sometimes dramatic events. They reveal an adult awareness of the gravity of the present day through a child's wide-eyed gaze.

This selection of works, all very different in their form and message, also highlights how contemporary figuration draws on its close ties with the various genres of popular culture, switching it towards a different area.

The exhibition is being shown to the Romanian public at the MNAC from January to end of August 2008. Other events (talks) are also being staged at the MNAC or at the Institut Français in Bucharest, which is also hosting a programme of residencies for French artists in 2008.

Organisers : MNAC, CNAP, FNAC, French Embassy, French Institut, Cultures France
Sponsor: Peroni
Partners of the French Embassy: BRD, Orange, Alcatel, Apanova, Carrefour
Media Partners: 24 Fun, Re:PUBLIK, Igloo, Arhitectura

LOUVRE IS MY STUDIO, STREET IS MY MUSEUM
Braco Dimitrijevic

Curators: Magda Cârneci, Mihai Oroveanu, Oana Tanase
April, 30 - June, 04 2008

From the beginning of his career initiated at the end of the 1960s within the conceptualist movement, Braco Dimitrijevic's works have constantly opposed all kinds of stereotypes in thinking and behavior related to such "sacred" notions as power and fame, one-way progress and linear history, genius and authorship. But what makes him special among other radical artists is that his impulse for relativism and desacralization, his critical attitude against authority and dogma, have never lacked a sense of elegance and harmony, an empathic concern for the idea of the "other", be it an unknown person, an animal, a bird, or a foreign culture. Braco Dimitrijevic is an artist who has chosen to employ the tools of art history in order to set art, artists, and the public free from too much history, and he does this with the striking strong weapons of good sense, "good manners", and normalcy.
(Fragment from a text by art critic Magda Cârneci, published in the exhibition catalogue).

WORK OF THE MONTH
Alexandra Gulea: today I was young and pretty
video, 52min, 2007

selected by Oana Tanase
April, 30 - May, 31 2008

A baptism ceremony full of tears amidst witnesses, a funeral announced by the grooming of a participant and a photo of the dead, cooking soup while teaching the little boy a song, line by line, heavy drinking in between studio sessions, a view of the village during the New Year's Eve, blue walls, rugs, a lot of mud, dogs, cats and many inquisitive eyes. Alexandra Gulea's film - today I was young and pretty - is not characterized by dialogue and its narrative thread dissolves in music and is being built through it; both the expansion and compression of time occur in relation to music. A disheartening and yet vital vulnerability pervades both the construction and the perception of reality.

THE MUSEUM WITH NO LIMITS
Conference and public debate
Guest lecturer: Agustin Perez Rubio, chief curator MUSAC
Agustin Perez Rubio will be introduced by Ruxandra Balaci, artistic director MNAC

Friday, 18th of April, 17h00

The lecture of Mr. Agustin Perez Rubio, MUSAC Chief Curator in Spain will deal with the notion of the Museum in the XXIth century. Since the XIXth century the idea of the museum has changed a lot and now we have to re-think the meaning of the museum in the new age. On the other hand, we have to ask which are the new ideas, concepts and strategies for the best development of a contemporary art museum in the XXIth century.

Mr. Perez Rubio developed several projects and ideas at MUSAC, one of the most successful contemporary art museum in Spain and one of the best museums in Europe, which opened in April 2005. His aim is to define a clear idea about what is a new contemporary art museum in a specific context or one that could be completely changeable or transferred to another context. Mr. Rubio reflects on how such notions as audience/user, dematerialization of art, activist communication or the museum as an instrument of art criticism and theory could be understood at the centre as well as periphery.

Works from the collection of MNAC
3rd Floor

decembrie 2007 - februarie 2008

Florin Ciulache, Turn off, 2007

Artists: DAN ACOSTIOAIE, GHEORGHE ANGHEL, GETA BRATESCU, TITI CEARA, FLORIN CIULACHE, NISTOR COITA, ONISIM COLTA, SUZANA DAN, DARIE DUP, REKA CSAPO DUP, ADRIANA ELIAN, TEODOR GRAUR, ION GRIGORESCU, VLAD IACOB, GHEORGHE ILEA, NICU ILFOVEANU, AURORA KIRALY, IOSIF KIRALY, PETRU LUCACI, BOGDAN MATEIAS, IOAN MEDRUT, DAN MIHALTIANU, DÉNES MIKLOS, THEODOR MORARU, VLAD NANCA, IOANA NEMES, TRAIAN NITESCU, ILIE PAVEL, ROMELO PERVOLOVICI, RADU PULBERE, CRISTIAN RADUTA, MIRCEA ROMAN, ILIE RUSU, EMILIAN SAVESCU, OVIDIU SIMIONESCU, DONALD SIMIONOIU, ANA MARIA SMIGELSCHI, VLADIMIR SETRAN, ION STENDL, IOSIF TASI, NAPOLEON TIRON, PAUL TIMOFEI, VASILE TOLAN, ROMAN TOLICI, SIMONA VILAU, AUREL VLAD, BOGDAN VLADUTA, GHEORGHE ZARNESCU, CALINA PANDELE YTTREDAL

QUARTET FOR A LAVALIERE
Choreography and sound installation

10, 11, 12 April / 19.30

MNAC, 4th Floor

A show choreographed by Vava Stefanescu and performed by Carmen Cotofana, Mihaela Dancs, Adrian Stoian (dancers) and Julien Trambouze (sound artist).

photo: Eduard Armeanu

Conceived as an installation, the show draws on the idea of seclusion in a claustrophobic space, the lack of distance, the relation with the other and the fact of being trapped in our own existence. But these notions are only the starting point for our ad hoc improvisations. Together with the movement of the sound and the gaze of the spectators, they can give rise to new and unexpected ideas. The only stable reference point for the show is the visual / audio performance which lasts 60 minutes.
The randomness favored by certain contexts as well as the attention focused on the rituals of perception have been constant preoccupations for me and an endless source of fascination for this interplay between reality and fiction.
Vava Stefanescu - choreographer

For further information and reservations please contact lavaliera@liternet.ro

Sponsor: Razvan Penescu
A project supported by The National Cultural Fund Administration

WORK OF THE MONTH
MIHAI IEPURE GORSKI, UNTITLED, video, 2006
selected by Oana Tanase

March 2008

Designed almost as a still image, Untitled conveys the feeling of complete loneliness. Within only 17 seconds, the film captures a suicide-like atmosphere, through mimicking failure by falling and disappearance by absence.

CO2 - Infinit Brussels
Curator: Jean-Louis Godefroid

February, 14– March, 20

Artists: Isabelle Arthuis, Frédéric Barthes, Elina Brotherus, Sébastien Camboulive, André Cépéda, Jh Engström, Luca Etter, Alain Geronnez, François Goffin, Istvan Halas, Philippe Herbet, André Jasinski, Barbara & Michael Leisgen, Angel Marcos, Sarah Morissens, Alain Paiement, Bernard Plossu, Armand Quetsch, Sébastien Reuze si Andreas Weinand

WORK OF THE MONTH
ALEXANDRA GAITA, Fragments, 2006 - 2007
selected by Ruxandra Balaci

January - February 2008

In her paintings, Alexandra Gaita captures urban impressions in purified geometry. The accurate drawing on impeccable canvases has possible references into the 70s decorative style, or virtual scenographies of cartoons without character, building up fictional textures of deserted towns or pulsations of the starry sky or abstract fireworks.

Works from the collection of MNAC
2nd Floor

Decembrie 2007 - February 2008

Geta Bratescu, Magnets in the city, 1974

Artists: Ioana Batranu, Horia Bernea, Ion Bitzan, Geta Bratescu, Roman Cotosman, Suzana Fantanaru, Constantin Flondor, Vasile Gorduz, Ion Grigorescu, Gheorghe Ilea, Peter Jacobi, Marcel Lupse, Florin Mitroi, Paul Neagu, Florin Niculiu, Horia Pastina, Doina Simionescu, Daniel Spoerri, Napoleon Tiron, Vasile Tolan, Ecaterina Vrana.

WORK OF THE MONTH /December 2007 - January 2008
ANCA BENERA / The Red Rider
chosen by Ruxandra Balaci

In most cases, the replacement of political regimes implies a reconsideration and renegotiation of historical values. Having in view this process, I am interested in the changes and political antagonisms that had affected the identity of public monuments in Romania. My investigation revolves around the feeling of ambiguity generated by a symbolic transfer - that of using the melted equestrian statue of Carol I to build the one of Lenin and around the currently argued hypothesis of remaking the Carol I's statue, using actually the same bronze of the existing Lenin. (Anca Benera)

A Journey in Italian Art 1950-1980
100 Works from the Farnesina Collection
Curator Maurizio Calvesi
November, 7 - December, 2 2007



Enzo Cucchi "Grande viagio di caccia e guerra" 1981

MNAC presents a traveling exhibition curated by Maurizio Calvesi under the auspices of the Italian Embassy in Bucharest, comprising 100 works from the Farnesina Collection which are representative for the period 1950-1980 in Italy.
In its entirety, the collection of the Italian Ministry of Forign Affaits aims to be an attentive recorder of the careers of the most important Italian artists who are landmark names in the history of the Italian art of the twentieth century, ranging from a futurist work made by Boccioni (1906) to some of the last acquisitions of video art from 2006.
In Bucharest, the exhibition showcases works which are emblematic for the Italian art during the 2nd half of the twentieth century: from examples of arte povera (Burri, Fontana, Zorio, Merz, Kounellis), Transavanguardia (Clemente, Cucchi, Chia, Ontani, Paladino), conceptual art (Boetti, Paolini, Pistoletto, Manzoni) to "anachronic figurative art" (Di Stasio, Vespignani), neo-realism (Guttuso) or "Roman pop-art" (Schifano, Rotella).
By choosing art as a vehicle for communicating and representing a certain cultural policy, the collection acts as a true ambassador for disseminating the identity of a country and of a great culture and is also exemplary and highly relevant in its approach and methodology for similar institutions in Europe's smaller or bigger cultures. (Ruxandra Balaci)

Golden Age:
Highlights of Dutch Graphic Design 1890-1990
16 November - 13 December 2007
opening on November 16th, 2007
The National Museum of Contemporary Art
Galeria floor ¾, National Theatre
Bd N. Balcescu 2, sector 1
Bucharest, Romania

Graphic design in the Netherlands is internationally known and widly celebrated as highly innovative and influential. Bolstered by a long tradition, it is the prouct of many outstanding individual talents supported by an unusually receptive clientele and public. As graphic design enters a period of technological innovation, this exhibition offers a rich overview of Dutch graphic design from approximately 1890 to 1990.

Program (English spoken)
17:00 Welcome by Mihai Oroveanu, director National Museum of Contemporary Art
17:15 Introduction by Dingeman Kuilman, managing Director Premsela, Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion
17:30 Opening by H.E. Mr. Jaap L. Werner, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Romania. Guest: Mr. Dinu Dumbravicean, associate Reader, Bucharest University of Art, Department of Design.

Paul Schuitema, Centrale Bond 30.000 Transportarbeiders (Central Union, 30.000 Transport Workers), poster, 1930. 116 x 76 cm.

Erich Weiss, Thomas Galler
curator: Florin Tudor
September - November

Blind Love, Erich Weiss	9. Mai 1976, Thomas Galler

The exhibition presents a selection of video works and installations in which both artists are engaging themes related to the way we perceive beauty and death. Appropriated texts or filmed footage, images of real or fictional places of conflict come together to reconstruct a world completely shaped by our desires.

Sean Snyder
Curators: Mihnea Mircan & Florin Tudor
September, 6 - December, 6 2007

Dallas Southfork in Hermes Land, Slobozia, Romania, 2001

Working with photography, video and text, Sean Snyder dissects the role and processes of ideological representation in the construction of the urban and media space. After extensive research into notions and forms of architecture or urban planning, tracing connections between distant cities and their similar modernization programs, Sean Snyder has articulated more recently a discourse that uncovers symptoms of ideological representation and subversive counterpoints to dominant knowledge.

Snyder's projects have followed the comparable ambitions pertaining to a sort of political sublime that propelled the communist remodeling of Pyongyang and Bucharest, a comparison between the fiction of the Southfork ranch in the TV series Dallas and the
fiction of Southfork Slobozia, where a copy without an original has been built by local magnate Ilie Alexandru, the plans of Kenzo Tange to rebuild Skopje following an earthquake and the exuberant aesthetics of housing blocks in the peripheries of Paris. In later projects, Snyder undertook a critique of ideological representation, pinning down the disparities, deliberate or not, being trafficked by mass media, analyzing the capacity of news events and the different manners they are reported to reveal a web of dependencies, partisanships and populist calculation. Governments and corporations emit sentences designed to motivate or reassure, to sell or win over. Sean Snyder?s projects do not respond with an utopian effort to re-establish truth, but with a quixotic program to archive rhetorical glitches and premeditated half-truths, collective Freudian slips and baffling misalliances, engendering a world map of acts of manipulation and suspended meanings,prefiguring in a sense a global hidden agenda.

The archives I construct are sort of sub-indexes borrowed from existing sources of knowledge; libraries, the Internet, media sources, etc. I don't make much of a hierarchy between the existing resources from which I borrow and the photos or video material I produce myself. Whatever I accumulate or produce is part of a process to fill in the missing links. The meaning materializes through re-configurations and juxtapositions that cross-reference a number of disparate points without offering an end conclusion. I see one of the possibilities of art to reassess the debris of the immediate political or cultural past. - Sean Snyder, in discussion with Charles Esche

Sean Snyder was born in Virginia Beach, USA in 1972. He lives and works in Berlin and Kiev. Recent solo exhibitions include the Stedelijk Museum CS (Amsterdam), Secession (Vienna), Portikus (Frankfurt), De Appel (Amsterdam), Neue Kunsthalle (St. Gallen), and Lisson Gallery (London).

Bitzan, Maitec, Mitroi, Nicodim
curator: Mihai Oroveanu

July- September 2007

From the series of exhibitions dedicated to Romanian artists who passed away in the last few years, MNAC hereby presents a selection of works by Ion Bitzan, Ovidiu Maitec, Florin Mitroi and Ion Nicodim, works which are
largely unknown to the general public.
This exhibition does not intend to provide a retrospective-like survey, but rather to highlight some significant aspects of the careers of the aforementioned artists, aspects which have triggered important directions of Romanian contemporary art.
The discourse put forward by this exhibition is therefore subjective and deliberately intended to provoke a new type of analysis, less indebted to some superficial superstitions that have shaped the unsubstantial art historical accounts of the last decades.
We hope that this formula will challenge the specialists to a necessary reevaluation of the sources of Romanian contemporary art. This approach aims to stimulate the writing of in-depth monographies about the work of these artists, work that is insufficiently known and promoted.

Stefan Constantinescu
Thanks for A Wonderful, Ordinary Day
Curator: Oana Tanase

June - October 2007

Stefan Constantinescu, Northern Lights, photo series, 2006

This exhibition by Stefan Constantinescu presents itself as a large installation which showcases a series of works made between 1998 and 2007 and bears a title which is anything but random. The title comes from Agnetha Fältskog's song Thanks for a Wonderful, Ordinary Day (1974) which forms the soundtrack of the documentary film El Pasaje (2005), a film which led to my first meeting and discussion with the artist and which later prompted me to take further interest in this curatorial project. From the very beginning I sensed that the passage in the film echoed the passage that the artist himself was going through: Constantinescu's own trajectory has been a transitory one, his destiny resembles the destiny of others who chose to take another road after 1990.
Whether in film, photography, text or through his publishing initiatives, Stefan Constantinescu explores the way in which experience and memory are culturally mediated. For him, both experience and memory are lived and constructed at the same time and they are equally fraught with feelings of desire, hope and fear. While having an obvious interest in the history of the recent years, in the politics of evidence and absence, the artist assumes a double perspective: in speaking about the others he subtly delivers a version of his own autobiography. Self-reflexiveness here seems to function not only as a solution pertaining to the genre of the documentary film but also as an ethical imperative. (Oana Tanase)

WORK OF THE MONTH / September
Ovidiu Fenes : Alphabet
installation, 2007
Selected by Ruxandra Balaci

WORK OF THE MONTH / July
Roman Tolici: FUCK
comics, 2005

Selected by Oana Tanase

Deriving its subject from an unpublished short story authored by the artist himself, this piece unfolds in 25 sequences the pranks which the hapless character (an alter-ego of the artist) is subjected to. Roman Tolici expresses his reactions to these misfortunes through the temperamental fluidity of the drawing, through the speeding up of the rhythm and tension, suprising the viewer through unexpected reversals of the narrative.

FUORI USO 2006 - ALTERED STATES
Are you experienced?
June 26 - August 31, 2007
Curated by: Nicolas Bourriaud, Paolo Falcone

ARTISTS ON SHOW
Emese Benczúr, Anca Benera, Madeleine Berkhemer, Liz Cohen, Attila Csörgö, Daniela d'Arielli, Christelle Familiari. Matteo Fato, Vidya Gastaldon & Nathalie Rebholz, Ludovica Gioscia, Piero Golia, Barthi Kher, Gunilla Klingberg, Gelitin, Michael Lin, Justin Lowe, Saverio Lucariello, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Kendell Geers, Sergio Sarra, subREAL, Janaina Tschäpe, Luca Vitone, Kelley Walker.

This exhibition is the winning project of the European Programme Culture 2000 which is financially supported by the European Union. It is co-funded and promoted by the Town Councillorship for Community Policies in partnership with the "Arte Nova - Fuori Uso" Cultural Association, the Abruzzo Region, the Pescara-Abruzzo Foundation, ACAX of Budapest and Galeria Noua of Bucharest.
Are you experienced? is organized as an itinerant exhibition: after the first venue in Pescara, at Ex Mercato Ortofrutticolo, the show is hosted in 2007 at WAX (ex MEO) programmed by ACAX - Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange of Budapest and in Bucharest at Galeria Noua and at MNAC.
Are you experienced? aims to examine the relationship between art and the processes of modification of perceptions. Under the concept of social surrealism it intends to link induced altered states to a collective dream into the contemporary artistic expressions. The project considers several aspects implying the study of new theories linking the alteration experience or modification of perception, from sculpture to painting and video, to performance, to site-specific installation, with anthropology, sociology, shamanist practices.

Works from the Colletion of Société Generale Paris
Selected by: Oana Tanase
Artistsi: Gérard GAROUSTE, Philippe RAMETTE, Philippe CARPENTIER, Thomas RUFF, Victor BURGIN, Philippe CHANCEL, Antoni TAPIES, Pierre ALECHINSKY, Tom CARR, Stéphane COUTURIER, Edouardo CHILLIDA, Sol LEWITT, Andy WARHOL, Werner HANNAPEL

June, 13 – July, 15 2007

Philippe Ramette, Contemplation irrationelle, 2003

With the support of: BRD Société Generale Romania

ACCIDENTS
A selection of recent Brazilian videos
Curator: Wagner Morales

April, 24 - June, 10

Roberto Bellini, Through the Glass, film still

Artists: Roberto Bellini, Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain, Cao Guimarães, Marcellvs L., Renata Lucas, Cinthia Marcelle, Wagner Malta Tavares, Wagner Morales, Amilcar Packer, Sara Ramo, Nuno Ramos.

"Accidents" is a selection of Brazilian videos made over the last six years.
For this screening, I chose video works that share an involvement with the idea of recording/ registering - an emphasis on what is in front of the video camera instead of what might be behind it (a constructed story, a formal device like abstract images of pixels or colors dissolving etc.) Instead of the complicated constructions of the film maker, the artists whose works are presented in "Accidents" deploy a performative engagement with the strategies of video art. Even if it presupposes that the artist instigates something to happen, activates the very process he or she will film, the perfomative is a way of allowing accidents into the work, of instrumentalizing the spontaneous and the possibly disruptive.
The risks and accidents, the errors and the imponderable factors that tend to be cast aside or suppressed in the video editing process, are here incorporated as structural elements of the works, articulating a plane on which it is possible to stroll and gain interpretive access to the works.
Wagner Morales

SUBLIME OBJECTS. Collections sans frontières VI
Works from the collections of Frac du Grand Est
(Frac Alsace, Frac Bourgogne, Frac Champagne-Ardenne, Frac Franche-Comté, Frac Lorraine)

Curator: Mihnea Mircan

Tania Mouraud, HCYS?, site-specific intervention
collection Frac Lorraine, (c) Adagp Paris 2007

Artists: Adel ABDESSEMED, Alain BUBLEX, Matthew BUCKINGHAM, Julien DISCRIT, Jimmie DURHAM, Ceal FLOYER, Mario GARCIA TORRES, Rodney GRAHAM, David LAMELAS, Didier MARCEL, Philippe MESTE, Tania MOURAUD, Gianni MOTTI, Stefan NIKOLAEV, Philippe RAMETTE, David RENAUD, Allen RUPPERSBERG, Hiroshi SUGIMOTO.

March 28 - June 30, 2007

The exhibition catalogue will be launched in September.
Texts by: Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield, Erica Papernik, Arnaud François, Guillaume Sibertin-Blanc, Beatrice Josse, François Quintin, Ciprian Mihali.

With the support of:
PLATFORM Grand Est, L'Association des Regions francaises du Grand Est, CULTURESFRANCE, Ministere de la Culture et de la Commnincation (DAP), Ambassade de France en Roumanie, Institut Français de Bucarest

WORK OF THE MONTH
Vlad Nanca
Happy Sunday
Installation and performance - Sunday 6th May
between: 16.00 - 18.00

Selected by Ruxandra Balaci

The outline of a car will obstruct the visitor's passage through the corridor leading from from the exterior elevator to the 4th floor of the museum. The car, similar to the ones in the installation Dream of Bucharest from Nanca's exhibition in Akademie Schloss Solitude, in January this year, keeps the same rough contour as the cars the artist has been drawing on pavements and walls all over the public space of Bucharest.

On the first Sunday of the month (6th May) the artist will lie down under the car imitating the gesture of many car owners who perform small repairs at the end of the week. His gesture is paying homage to those people who use the public space to fix their personal car.

Situated "in a key position - inside the museum, but still outside of it", Nanca will make use of the time spent under the car to "meditate on different issues that he is interested in at the moment, such as the Parliamentary Republic of Romania, MNAC as a possible factor of balance for the Romanian contemporary art scene, the use of public space in Bucharest and the battle for the second position in the Romanian Football Championship".

From Regional to International.
BUILDINGS - PROJECTS 1996-2005
Baumschlager-Eberle Architects, Lochau (Austria)
February 28 - May 6, 2007
Mediatheque

Since its establishment as a partnership in 1985, the architectural practice of Baumschlager - Eberle in Lochau / Vorarlberg has completed well over 300 construction projects and building studies, earning itself an international reputation. Recent representative works include large-scale projects such as the Vienna airport extension, the MOMA high-rises in Beijing, the WHO / UNAIDS building in Geneva and the 1,000-bed hospital in Kortrijk (Belgium).
Key to the Baumschlager - Eberle philosophy is that architecture is a complex entity requiring the integration of many different elements, to which justice can only be done if a building meets all the demands made on it in terms of structural intelligence, ecology, economic efficiency and social acceptability.
The exhibition presents the buildings designed by Baumschlager - Eberle over a period of nine years. The items on display illustrate the scale of the work handled by Baumschlager - Eberle, which ranges from regional buildings to major international projects. The exhibition comprises plans, models and extensive photographic documentation supplied by Arch Photo Inc. Eduard Hueber.

With many thanks to: Zumtobel Staff; Aedes; Land Vorarlberg

Geta Bratescu - Ion Grigorescu. Resources
Works from the collection of MNAC

Selected by Ruxandra Balaci with Magda Radu
31 January - 15 May 2007

Geta Bratescu and Ion Grigorescu are two central figures in Romanian contemporary art, who are recognized on the international art scene as well. Both of them had major solo exhibitions organized at the National Museum of Art of Romania (Department of Contemporary Art), curated by Ruxandra Balaci: Ion Grigorescu's 1998 exhibition, Documents 1967-1997, and Geta Bratescu's 1999 Retrospective. Apart from a life-long friendship and their collaboration in making some of Geta Bratescu's films (The Studio, The Hand of my Body and Ludus), what they have in common is an artistic practice orientated toward experiment, both of them using various forms of expression (ranging from painting, collage, sculpture, drawing, object and photography, to experimental film, video works and performance).

Ion Grigorescu is the author of some anthological works that are seminal for the alternative art practice in Romania during communism. His famous 8mm film Dialogue with Comrade Ceausescu (1978) reflects the most critical/subversive position that a Romanian artist has ever taken in addressing the political power. The questioning of identity, the radical experiments with his own body, his interest in Yoga or his allegiance to religious orthodox painting - are as many facets of his artistic personality which make him extraordinarily complex and difficult to define.
Alongside his films, the exhibition showcases works from the collection which the public has now the chance to (re)discover. Works such as Das Kunstpalais, the tin dogs or the photography documenting the moving of Mihai Voda Church evoke a sordid local reality that the artist acknowledged while refusing any rhetoric of the image or of the object.

Geta Bratescu is represented with works which account for major directions and essential moments in her artistic career: the happening and the installation Toward White, the series of collages, the objects which inventively develop the theme of the self-portrait, the drawings with the eyes closed, the experimental films from the '70s, etc. In this exhibition, the intimate, self-reflective space of the studio is counterbalanced by the urban space (as seen for example in the magnified image of the Magnets in the City). In addition, Lady Oliver and Sir Thonet are caught in an amusing "duel" which pairs up word and image (or the object), masculine and feminine, reality and artifice.
The choice of experimental film and of video is not a forced attitude, it is, on the contrary, perfectly consistent with her other concerns, effecting a subtle reshaping of her artistic persona.

SELF-TIMER
Photography and video-art from Finland
14 february - 15 April 2007

Artists: Elina Brotherus, Aino Kannisto, Sanna Kannisto, Fanni Niemi-Junkola, Salla Tykkä
Concept/curators: René Block, Birgit Eusterschulte

The exhibition Self-Timer, to be shown at MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art), Bucharest, organized by ARTMANIA Foundation in collaboration with FRAME (Finnish Fund for Art Exchange), Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, the Embassy of Finland in Romania and MNAC, provides a first, comprehensive insight into the photographic and filmic work of five young artists from Finland. Their works focus not so much on great political and social themes. The artists capture their times in personal, everyday events, portraying the reality of their lives and their relations with the external world, or they formulate subjective emotions and personal issues in fictional narration reflecting societal reality. In photography and film they rely on the force of visual staging and a highly aesthetic visual language where appearances can prove deceptive.
By merging authentic moment and the staging of personal life, the early self-portraits of Elina Brotherus (*1972), enquiry into the state of the personal self. Later photographs shift the perspective outwards from extreme and exposing self-contemplation: she begins to photograph landscapes and horizons. The "new paintings," as she calls the series, seek answers in photography to questions that have occupied painting for centuries: light and shadow, colour and composition, constellations of figures in space.
Aino Kannisto (*1973) also works with the photographic self-portrait, but in her case they are fictive role portraits with the artist as model, adopting various female identities but not really portraying herself. Kannistos' meticulously detailed compositions have an air of film stills of female protagonists, freeze frames capturing a brief moment in the action.
For her photographs, Sanna Kannisto (*1974) ventured into the Latin-American rainforest, where she spent months in research camps with scientists, conducting her own artistic research. In her subjective perspective on the multifarious, exotic fauna and flora of the rainforest, the artist adopts the supposedly objective research and working methods of science, exposing them, however, in her emphasis on the staged and artificial.
Fanni Niemi-Junkolas'(*1962) filmic portraits depict simple people. Mostly in concentrated calm and quiet observation of the other, she tells of daily life, and these intimate stories open a perspective on universal issues of human existence and its environment, on the relationship between the individual and society.
In her films, Salla Tykkä (*1973) tells short stories about the transition from childhood to adulthood and relations between the sexes which elude unambiguous interpretation in their enigmatic ambivalence and complexity. An atmospheric visual aesthetic, the skilled use of well-known film music, and playing with allusions and memories generate lasting tension and a sense of foreboding and uncertainty.

Produced by:
FRAME (Finnish Fund for Art Exchange) and Kunsthalle Fridericianum
In Romania produced by:
ARTMANIA Foundation and MNAC
The event is organized under the auspices of the Embassy of Finland in Romania.

WORK OF THE MONTH
Gili Mocanu - CO
painting and object, 2006-2007
chosen by Oana Tanase
until April 15

For Gili Mocanu, C and O (the consonant and the vowel) have become purely analytic instruments, their generic force infusing an entire series of works, in whichever language or media. Seemingly subversive and temperamental, their origin stems from a research which doesn't take into account the external reality. C and O share the same lucidity and reductive sensibility which is apparent both in the artist's earlier and less familiar works like LIH HIL and in the more recent series of large format canvases which extract from the everyday life various items like a book, a sofa or a funeral carriage. Basic grammatical and gravity laws are being resorted to in the process of negotiating the tensions between the two rings which connect in the same chain; thus, the painting acquires a metallic edge while the drawing becomes form.

WORK OF THE MONTH
Cristi Pogacean - 2544
chosen by Ruxandra Balaci
until 15 February

"2544" can be read as a metaphor with ironical and sublime connotations, commenting upon the much-debated relation between the artist and the curator. On the first level, the video stages the visual narrative of the physical effort undertaken by the artist and the curator who are climbing together to "the very top" (of Mount Moldoveanu, that is, "the very top" of artistic achievement). The curator (Mihai Pop) carries a flag with the hypnotic emblem of the artist printed on it.
A second reading renders the message more subtle: not only is the artist's effigy being lifted by the curator, but the artist is also the one that holds the camera, directing and recording his own ascension. It is a sort of reversed mirroring which is mediated through the camera. The sublime feeling of the friendship between the two is mirrored by the sublimity of the landscape, providing the neo-romantic undertone present in many of Pogacean's works.

Christian Paraschiv
Bio arta - History Line - Le noir este la couleur du langage

Galeria Etaj 3/4 (TNB), 2 Nicolae Balcescu
March 22 - May 30, 2007

Oberhausen On Tour / screening
25th & 26th of january 2007
Auditorium

The European tour of the International Film Festival Oberhausen - one of the world's first and best-known short film festivals - is presenting the most interesting works from recent festivals to an even wider audience. MNAC will host the screening of two programmes from the festival: The Best of International Competition (25.01) and Media Art (26.01).

The Best of International Competition Programme features a selection of mostly experimental and documentary video works. From Africa to Bolivia, and from Canada to Kuala Lumpur, the social realities and forms of artistic expression in this programme are as diverse as life itself
Artists: Miranda Pennell (UK), Khavn de la Cruz (Philippines), Vincent Meessen (Belgium/Burkina Faso), Andreas Denegri (ARG), Belle Mellor (UK), Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay (CA), Petra Lindholm (Sweden), James Lee (Malaysia), Ken Wardrop (IR).

In the Media Art programme, the boundaries are fluid; the works presented highlight the tug-of-war between Black Box and White Cube.
Artists: Matthias Müller (GER), Volker Schreiner (GER), Sean Snyder (GER), Marcellvs L. (Brazil), Shelley Silver (USA), Nathalie Djurberg (Sweden)

Regimes of Representation: Art & Politics Beyond the House of People
Conference at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest
11 January 2007

Featuring Chantal Mouffe (keynote), Nicolas Bourriaud, Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield, Marcus Steinweg, 4space, Ruxandra Balaci and Meta Haven.

Organized by the Jan van Eyck Academie and Meta Haven: Design Research
information and reservations: http://www.museumofconflict.eu
t +31 (0)64 831 65 43
t +31 (0)62 427 67 97
e office@metahaven.net

Conference outline
On January 11, 2007, a conference will be organized in the former House of People in Bucharest - more precisely, in Romania's national museum of contemporay art: MNAC. The title of the conference is 'Regimes of Representation: Art & Politics Beyond the House of People'. The subject of the conference is the very location where the event is being held. The former Casa Poporului, now Palatul Parlamentului, and its current co-function as a museum of contemporary art, will be the point of departure for a discussion of the relation between politics, imagination and representation, both in and beyond the post-communist condition.
MNAC is one of various attempts to use contemporary art and creative forces to transform a former 'totalitarian' symbol into one for democracy, but it is unique in simultaneously being the seat of government. The central question for the conference is: can art ever 'take over the central point of power, being a symbol of openness and democracy'? Can, consequently, imagination influence or take over the meaning of a building that is an essential logo of totalitarian rule? How does Romania's first national contemporary art institution employ the symbolic to express a constructed national identity, by using (totalitarian) foundation? Can we speak of a reverse 'Bilbao Effect?' And how does the institutionalization of contemporary art reflect the imperative to democratize since the fall of communism?
This event is generously supported by the Royal Dutch Embassy in Bucharest.

Conference programme
10.15
Registration
11.15
Welcome - Ruxandra Balaci, artistic director MNAC
11.30
Introduction - Vinca Kruk
11.45
Keynote lecture - Chantal Mouffe
12.45
Lecture - Nicolas Bourriaud
13.30
lunch
14.00
Lecture - Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield
14.45
Lecture - Marcus Steinweg
15.30
Lecture - 4Space (Augustin Ioan & Ciprian Mihali)
16.15
break
16.30
Round table discussion with all speakers - moderated by Daniel van der Velden
17.30
Drinks

Abstracts / Biographies

Agonistic politics and artistic practices
Chantal Mouffe - Keynote lecture
In my presentation I will discuss the different ways to envisage the public space and scrutinize the implications of this discussion for artistic practices. My argument will be that public art is not art located in a place that is public - as opposed to private space. Public art is art that institutes a public space, in the sense of a common action by people. I will for instance address the question of what kind of public progressive art institutions should try to institute: a public space that aims at establishing consensus or a public space of agonistic confrontation?
Taking my bearings from my previous work, I will first show that the task of democratic politics is not to aggregate interests or to attempt at reaching a rational consensus, but to transform antagonism into agonism. Then I will draw the consequences of this approach to understand the relation between art and politics and to grasp the nature of critical artistic practices. What is at stake, I will argue, is the questioning of the dominant hegemony by bringing to the fore all the aspects that the dominant consensus is trying to repress. I will insist on the multiplicity of ways in which this consensus can be undermined and show that artistic practices can contribute in a variety of ways to the fostering of new forms of subjectivities.

Chantal Mouffe is Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in London. She has taught and researched at a number of universities in Europe, North America and South America. She is member of the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris. She was editor of Gramsci and Marxist Theory (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1979), Dimensions of Radical Democracy. Pluralism, Citizenship, Community (Verso, London, 1992), Deconstruction and Pragmatism (Routledge, London, 1996) and The Challenge of Carl Schmitt, (Verso, London, 1999). She co-authored with Ernesto Laclau Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (Verso, London, 1985) and was the author of The Return of the Political (Verso, London, 1993), The Democratic Paradox (Verso, London, 2000) and On the Political (Routledge, London, 2005).

Nicolas Bourriaud
Nicolas Bourriaud is a French curator and art critic who coined the term 'relational aesthetics', which he outlined in 1995. From 2002 to 2006 he was co-director of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (with Jérôme Sans). Bourriaud founded the magazine Documents (1992-2000), and served as the Paris correspondent for Flash Art.
Bourriaud published Relational Aesthetics (2002) and Postproduction (2001). He defines as 'relational' art which takes as its theoretical horizon 'the realm of human interactions and its social context, rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space'.
Nicolas Bourriaud is a consultative board member for MNAC - Muzeul National de Arta Contemporana, Bucharest.

Art and democracy at the founding of foundation
Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield
The building in which MNAC is housed was constructed to found - according to dictator Nicolae Ceausescu who ordered its construction - a 'new man'. As such it occurs as foundation, not just the foundation of a national identity, but the foundation of foundation itself. It is this essential feature that mnac has to negotiate. But how exactly can art 'take over' such a building 'as a symbol of openness and democracy', as is claimed for MNAC by Nicolas Bourriaud in his capacity as a founding member of its advisory board?
What is presupposed by such a claim? Might it not repeat something troubling about the building's original founding? This paper will draw from what is troubling about Bourriaud's presuppositions about art, and contrary to his notion of relational aesthetics, the sense in which art's resistance to politics is necessary for the institution of democracy.

Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield is Reader in Theory & Philosophy of Art at the University of Reading and sits on the executive of the Forum for European Philosophy at the London School of Economics, and on the board of AICA (Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art). He has published various papers in the area of continental philosophy, on art and on ethics especially. Currently he is writing two books: Art's Resistance to Ethics and Heidegger's Philosophy of Art. He was a researcher at the theory department of Jan van Eyck Academie from 2004 until 2006.

The obscurantism of facts
Marcus Steinweg
Neither philosophy nor art are matters of proof or opinion. Philosophy and art posit things, they assert. Assertion is distinguished from proof and opinion since it has to make do without certainty. A philosophy of assertion is a philosophy in uncertainty. It surpasses and transgresses the modalities of conventional thinking such as reflection, argument, grounding, and criticism. It is a matter of the subject touching a truth in uncertainty and giving this instance of contact a form, a language. Truth refers to the limits of the world of facts. Philosophy exists only in that it touches these limits. It is an assertion that denies the validity of the imperatives of the factual. Touching upon truth, philosophy has to resist the certainty of opinion and the obscurantism of facts in equal measure. It is a touching of the untouchable and it makes this touching into a life-form.
My aim is to defend the political relevance of art and philosophy against conventional political art and political philosophy. I intend to show that political art and political philosophy establish their own de-politicization. They are not concerned with a politics of freedom, of the impossible and what is most necessary. The politics I am referring to differ from what is usually called politics. This type of politics does not assert or defend interests. It would be about a resistance against the order of socio-political and ideo-cultural reality. It would articulate itself by absolutely refusing the universe of facts and the opinions circulating in this universe. It would be a politics of truth insofar as it considers proof as what comes into conflict with established certainties. It causes the voice of official truth to stutter and be brought to silence.
I want to show that art only has meaning as art. Philosophy only has meaning as philosophy. It does not serve to reduce art and philosophy to the socio-political field in which they articulate themselves. It does not make sense to define the mission of art and philosophy as political. 'That is the left-wing illusion of the past few decades,' Heiner Müller argues 'of European intellectuals and particularly the literati, that there could be and should be a community of interests between art and politics. Ultimately, art cannot be controlled. Or it can always evade control. And for this reason it has been… almost automatically subversive.'

Marcus Steinweg is a philosopher and writer who lives in Berlin. His publications include Krieg der différance and Autofahren mit Lacan (Koblenz, 2001), Der Ozeanomat. Ereignis und Immanenz (Cologne, 2002), Subjektsingularitäten (Berlin, 2004) and Behauptungsphilosophie (Berlin, 2006).
Steinweg regularly collaborates with the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn in the latter's publications and large-scale politically inspired art installations, for which Steinweg often writes texts.

Singular object: the house of the republic resisting interpretations
4Space (Augustin Ioan & Ciprian Mihali)
The significance of the Ultimate Edifice and, setting out from it, the Boulevard of Victorious Socialism - or rather the anti-urban phenomenon that is officially called 'the new civic center' - has been interpreted lately: their conception and construction and their use from the communist period before 1989 up to the present. Any attempt to set them in order should start from two premises. Firstly, the respective edifice resists any unique, 'holistic' interpretation that could exhaust meanings in matters of production and destination. Secondly, there are important distinctions between the modalities of explaining the building from the threefold vantage of its spaces. These spaces are first of all the exterior space, i.e. the city. Next there's the exterior space of the building, i.e. its close vicinity, in the crooked language of post-Soviet politics or the huge halo of influence that the monstrous structure exuded. Finally, there's the outer space. Since verifiable data are lacking, oral studies only account for having established the nearly 'occult' nature of the biggest urban operation in the history of Romania. These oral sources include unfinished and unpublished studies such as the one by Gérard Althabe from the ehess in Paris and legends recounted by eye-witnesses or just by former 'initiated persons' such as Professor Cornel Dumitrescu, the one-time rector of iaim Bucharest. As said, this colossal project owes its imaginary, mythical dimension to the wave of petites histoires it generated.
The most valuable interpretations, even if partial, are to be found not exactly in the discourse on architecture and urbanism but rather in that of the socio-human sciences, political science, history of mentalities, anthropology of the peri-urban (slum), and, not lastly, in psychoanalysis. The various sensible projects submitted in connection with the Republic House after 1989 vacillate between two extremes: the least extreme proposes to 'recuperate' the House in a strictly professional jargon of architectural 'expertise'.
This has been used not only by architects but also by diverse interpreters of the house and by guides who show mesmerized foreigners around. At the bottom line of the bottom-line commentary on the Republic House (as poet Nichita Stanescu would have put it), we are dealing with quantity, size, forms of design, special structures and so on. At the upper line of the bottom line we can approach 'the postmodernism' of the House and of the Boulevard of Victorious Socialism, its 'Bigness' (Rem Koolhaas) and other concepts that could prove useful. In discussions about the House, the 'higher' aspect (in the strict sense of ab/use, of excessive investment with meaning) is taken as an epiphany. The House is like a heavenly Jerusalemite temple elevated in Bucharest in view of a second coming to take place on the spot.
One interpretation renders the numerous social, economic, political folds of the edifice occult - often deliberately because guiltily so. Others go into an interpretative frenzy before it. Between these extremes flutters a practically endless concatenation of 'grays'. For instance, the nationalist rhetoric is boosted by the apparently neutral data regarding construction technologies and materials that are, apparently, all exclusively Romanian and, of course, superlative. (At times, the Peles Castle comes into the picture as a corollary. Here, even the wood was imported). There are also the much more decent, professionally speaking, but no less phantasmagoric ideas concerning a pre-established plan of Bucharest setting out from utopian, ideal schemes of the Sforzinda type (Dana Harhoiu). The structuring origin of this would be a sacred geometry made up of a monastic 'Triangle of the Bermudas', with parish churches laid concentrically in relation to the St. George Old Church that is considered the navel of the city.

4Space is an interdisciplinary group of philosophers, architects, writers, sociologists and geographers dedicated to the critique and writing of urban policies in Romanian cities. It started as a focus-group with the New Europe College institute of advanced studies in Bucharest in 2004 and has a same-titled weekly column on the internet at www.liternet.ro. The group is in the process of publishing a book with contributions of its members at Idea Press in Cluj (2007).

Introduction & moderation
Meta Haven
Meta Haven: Design Research, based in Amsterdam, was founded in 2005 by Vinca Kruk, Daniel van der Velden, Adriaan Mellegers and Tina Clausmeyer. The team first started to collaborate in 2003 with a visual research into the Principality of Sealand, a tiny nation state located on a former war platform in the North Sea.
This project - centered around the pro-active engagement with a non-commissioning subject of interest, coming to terms with myth and symbolism, territorial identity and its diffusion into information networks - was carried out at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht.
Since, Meta Haven is investigating an array of case studies where the linkage between imagination and politics is key. The History Vs. Future project, focusing on the relationship between identity and history, resulted in a research of the House of People in Bucharest. Among the results of this discursive approach are, apart from a series of visual models and scenarios, the conferences The Museum of Conflict and Regimes of Representation.
At the Jan van Eyck Academie in 2007, Van der Velden and Kruk will carry out a research into the French/German internet search engine project Quaero, in collaboration with researchers Tsila Hassine and Gon Zifroni. This research attempts to merge a critical and imaginative understanding of design with a discussion on internet, politics, public domain, and cultural heritage. Meanwhile, Meta Haven: Design Research is working on a book, Uncorporate Identity, scheduled for publication in Fall, 2007.