Performing History

Venezia 2011. The exhibition is being organized by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Romanian Cultural Institute, and the International Center for Contemporary Art Bucharest, and will take place in the historical Romanian Pavilion building, located at the Giardini di Castello. PERFORMING HISTORY aims to articulate key topics regarding the comparative study of Eastern European modernities beyond the conventional Western perspective, and to emphasize the need for a non-stereotypical historical reevaluation from a global perspective. By focusing on different aesthetic and artistic practices that are specific not only to Romania, but also to Eastern Europe in general, this project does not solely attempt to re-enact a lived history of the art of the past decades, or a post-totalitarian history of the East, but endeavors instead to highlight the fact that confronting equally all the different types of modernities and forms of modernization may be the only valid approach. In this respect, PERFORMING HISTORY will open up the discussion about the necessary redefinition of the cultural and geo-strategic notions of East and West, a redefinition that takes into consideration the fundamental changes that have reshaped not only the former Communist bloc, but also Europe as a whole. The project proposes a creative reevaluation of our own history by means of a dynamic visual assemblage: a meta-display in which history is performed and translated on different levels of meaning from an artistic perspective. The choice of artists was driven by two objectives: on the one hand, to highlight how history is reflected, revealed, reinvented, and replicated in the artists work; and on the other hand, to initiate a dialogue between two different approaches towards reporting history: the historical avant-garde, and the contemporary post-avant-garde. The project will be complemented by a special issue of the magazine IDEA arts+society, coordinated by writer Bogdan Ghiu in collaboration with the magazine’s founder and editor- in-chief Timotei Nadasan. Vasile Dîncu and The Romanian Institute for
Assessment and Strategy (IRES) a special survey of interaction with the audience will be developed. This experimental study attempts to `plunge` into the collective memory of the East and the West, as an effect of the reception of the Performing History project. The aim of the study is to identify the viewers’ perceptions on East and West in general and on communism and capitalism in particular. The curators, Maria Rus Bojan and Ami Barak, have intentionally selected artists from different generations, whose work reflects different levels of the essential transformations that have recently taken place in the former Communist countries. The choice for Ion Grigorescu and the artist duo Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkacova is motivated by the obvious conceptual affinities that exist between them. The world before and after Communism, with its numerous failures, refractions, and discontinuities, has crucially influenced their work; their artistic approaches bridge different epochs, and reveal a shared artistic engagement and critical fervor, with history being perceived in a similarly performative way. Ion Grigorescu, regarded as one of the most important artists of his generation, is a representative artist not only of the Romanian artistic scene, but also of the entire Eastern European context. Often cited since the beginning of the 1970s as a pioneer in terms of the conceptual and performative use of the body as an artistic medium, Ion Grigorescu is one of the very few Romanian artists to radically and conceptually illustrate contemporary concerns in perfect synchrony with his time. He is an artist who literally incarnates history, embodying both the dialogues and the conflicts specific to Eastern Europe: namely, the tensions between tradition and avant-garde, and between the Orient and the Occident. Ion Grigorescu is currently being reevaluated by the Western art-historical establishment for his role in assuring and preserving an underground victory for artistically experimental attitudes during the totalitarian regime in Romania, under conditions of controlled or non-existent freedom. As partners in the same dialogue, the Prague-based artist duo Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkacova ensures the trans-historical continuity, dramatizing the need for artistic creativity by rearticulating the public space in the contemporary world. Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkacova have been working together since 2000. Their projects attempt to universalize a constant state of introspection, of curiosity in exploring the world they live in, and of an awareness of the complex relationship between the individual and the collective in contemporary society. With this project, the artists and curators want to comprehensively review all of the opportunities to debate and compare the dynamics of modernities from this specific perspective. The theme of the 54th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia 2011, “ILLUMInations”, already presents particularly favorable features in this regard: the redefining of identities, the revisiting and re-evaluation of the tradition of modernity, the reaffirmation of the socializing powers of art, a new artistic sobriety; in short, the need to comprehensively reassess history and reflect upon its cultural legacies. Maria Rus Bojan is an art critic and curator who lives and works in Amsterdam. She has been a curator at the Art Museum of Transylvania (Cluj), and the general director of the Sindan Cultural Foundation in Bucharest. She launched the contemporary artistic program of the Sindan Cultural Center’s branch in Cluj, which introduced an entire generation of artists to the international art scene: Victor Man, Adrian Ghenie, Ciprian Muresan, and many others. She has also curated several international exhibitions, including the Ulay retrospective “GENE.ET.RATIO ULTIMA RATIO” (2005, Centro Parraga Murcia, Spain), “Ready Media” (2008, NIMK Amsterdam, Contemporary Art Museum, Belgrade), “Locked-In” (2008, Casino Luxembourg), “Strategies for Concealing” (2008, C-Space Beijing), and “Tales of the Unexpected” (2010, Rotterdam). Since 2010, she has been the director of the curatorial and international program of Art Rotterdam. Ami Barak is an independent curator and art critic based in Paris. He has curated numerous international exhibitions in the past few years, for instance “House Trip”, ArtForum Berlin (Berlin, 2007); “Can Art Do More?” (Jerusalem 2008); “Re-construction”, Young Artists Biennale (Bucharest 2008); "Elixirs of Panacea" Palais Benedictine (Fecamp 2010), among many others. His most recent curatorial project was "Art for the World: City of Forking Paths", the Sculpture Project of the Expo Boulevard at the World Expo Shanghai 2010. He is currently a Lecturer at the Paris Sorbonne I University, works as an art adviser, and is a permanent collaborator for the magazine IDEA arts+society. Bogdan Ghiu is a writer, journalist, and essayist based in Bucharest. He has published an impressive number of books on literature, philosophy, poetry, media theory, and literary criticism. He has written essays on art, communication, and the post-modern world. He studied under Jacques Derrida, and has also translated most of the French theorists into Romanian, including Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, and Bourdieu. IDEA arts+society is one of the most important art and culture magazines in Romania, and was founded by its current editor-in-chief Timotei Nadasan. The magazine’s statement speaks for itself: allegiance to the demand for a genuine theory, a theory that is, first of all, its own practice. Project realized in partnership with: the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy Cluj, MB Art Agency Amsterdam, the Romanian National Lottery, Idea. Arts+Society, Christine Konig Gallery – Vienna, JGM Gallery – Paris, Gregor Podnar Gallery – Berlin, Artra Gallery - Milan

Sponsor: Grup Transilvae, Bucharest