The TWIST. Five Provincial Stories from an Empire
Curators | Călin Dan and Celia Ghyka Artists | Horia Bernea, Ștefan Bertalan, Ion Condiescu, Roman Cotoșman, Cristian Dițoiu, Constantin Flondor, Dani Ghercă, Ion Grigorescu, Ana Maria Micu, Ciprian Mureșan, Paul Neagu, Sorin Neamțu, Mihai Olos, Iulius Podlipny, Șerban Savu, Liviu Stoicoviciu, Napoleon Tiron, Bogdan Vlăduță Opening | Friday, 13 October 2023, starting at 7 pm Visiting schedule | 13 October 2023 - 11 February 2024, Wednesday to Sunday, 12 pm to 6 pm Venue | Kunsthalle Bega, Calea Circumvalațiunii 10, Timișoara, RO Organizer | Fundația Calina (Kunsthalle Bega), Timișoara, RO https://kunsthallebega.ro/ “THE TWIST. Five Provincial Stories from an Empire” (authors Călin Dan and Celia Ghyka) is a large-scale interdisciplinary project mapping the symbolic levels gathered in the culture of the historical Banat region over time. The project is constructed in two stages: a research that focuses on public and private archives (museums, collections, artist studios) relevant to the production, conservation and promotion of the material and immaterial heritage of the Banat region. This research will then be converted into a comparative exhibition, where the co-existence of genres, techniques and historical periods will form an installation with several levels of reading and chronology. The exhibition presents heritage objects and cultural goods from the collections of 6 museums: the National Museum of Banat Timișoara, the Museum of History, Ethnography and Fine Art in Lugoj, the Mountain Banat Museum Reșita, the Museum of the Iron Gates Region Drobeta Turnu Severin, the National Technical Museum "Prof. Eng. Dimitrie Leonida" Bucharest, and contemporary artworks from the workshops of contemporary artists or from various collections. The project is part of the National Cultural Program "Timișoara - European Capital of Culture in 2023" and is financed by the Inside Timișoara 2023 program, run by Timișoara Center for Projects, with amounts allocated from the state budget, through the budget from the Ministry of Culture. go to project ⮕ |
ECOLOGIILE GRIJII ȘI ÎNGRIJIRII. Capitolul 1: PLANTE UTILE
Curatorial input|Gabriela Mateescu Research & curatorial output|Valentina Iancu (Visual Arts), Eliza Yokina (Architecture), Prof. Dr. Mihaela Georgescu (Botany), Lecturer Dr. Vasilica Luchian (consultancy and herbarium curator) Artists|Horia Bernea, Nicolae Comănescu, Hortensia Mi Kafchin, Andreea Medar and Mălina Ionescu, Gabriela Mateescu, Diana Miron, Liliana Mercioiu, Ana Maria Micu, Roman Tolici, Iulia Toma, Miki Velciov Architectural Proposals|Beros Abdul Architects, Stardust Architects, Nicolas Triboi, Eliza Yokina Botanical research|Adrian Mureș - Master's student at the Faculty of Horticulture in Bucharest, Biodiversity Conservation Management Master's Program. Anton Polyakov’s zines are available in all exhibition spaces. Venue|Strata Gallery, Parângului 76 Street, Bucharest Opening|Saturday, 2 September 2023, between 18:00 and 22:00 Visiting schedule*|2-20 September 2023 *weekly guided tours or by appointment via message on Nucleu 0000 Facebook page Workshop|Plante de leac held by Lecturer Dr. Vasilica Luchian on Saturday, 9 September 2023, between 14:30 and 19:00, within the exhibition space, at Strata Gallery Guided Tour|Descoperă arta contemporană | Roman Tolici, Avanpost, Strata Gallery, ISAF, ArtCrawl Bucharest, held by Bogdan Bălan, Sunday, 10 September 2023, between 17:00 and 19:30. Finissage | Wednesday, 20 September 2023 between 18:00 – 21:00 (link to Facebook event) The section on utilitarian plants within the complexity of human relations with vegetal nature reveals mechanisms by which nature, being at the service of humanity, is imagined, used, consumed, destroyed. Plants provide the breath of the ecosystem of which we are a part. This living shell of the earth's crust has been transformed into a seemingly unlimited resource, exploited for human survival. The usefulness of plants covers all aspects of human life, from food, clothing, shelter, physical and mental health. The plants that cover and feed us, breathe with us or delight our eyes are a raw material that provides the basis of our existence. Living with botanical nature is indispensable to life, while human consumption habits endanger the life cycles of plants. go to project ⮕ |
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THREAT TO THE EYE
Artists | Anca Bodea, Mathias Bar, Taisia Corbuț, Teodora Cosman, Felix Deac, Ana Maria Micu, Ada Muntean, Răzvan Neagoe Curator | Ada Muntean Opening | Saturday, 8 April 2023, 18:00 Visiting schedule | 8 April - 7 May 2023 Wednesday - Saturday 16:00 - 19:00 Guided tour offered by the Indecis team | Saturday, 6 May 2025, starting at 17:00 The guided tour is part of the mediation program "What's up with contemporary art?" of the Indecis space and is supported by BRD-Groupe Société Générale. Venue|Indecis artist-run space, Coriolan Brediceanu 2 St., ap.6 (intercom 08), Timișoara www.instagram.com/indecisartistrun/ The concept of the Threat to The Eye exhibition starts from artist’s Barbara Kruger’s statement in the video „Barbara Kruger: in her own words”, in which she argues that her words represent a “threat to the eye”, because they change the viewer’s perceptions and stereotypes regarding their connection to reality as relation between object and the meaning given to it by mass culture. [Barbara Kruger: I think I have done a number of works which represent a threat to the eye. One of the reasons they’re powerful and effective is that they present a danger to our relationship to the seen world. I think that in a culture based on imagery and the collision of looking and being, the collision of narcissism and voyeurism, the eye is the major player. So, a threat to that eye is a threat to what it means to live another day.] Extrapolating the meaning that Barbara Kruger infuses to her artistic approach, contemporary art as a phenomenon can be regarded as a “threat to the eye”, due to its unpredictability and unfriendliness towards the viewer: it is not just a painting, it is not necessarily beautiful or put up on a wall. However, it can be all of that together and still become a “threat” to perception by subversively sending an antithetical message to the image it shows. — excerpt from the curatorial statement by Ada Muntean go to project ⮕ |
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MNAC INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY
Thursday, 16 March 2023, 17:00 - 18:30 MNAC Bucharest - Palace of Parliament, Izvor 2 - 4 St., Wing E4, Acces from Calea 13 Septembrie (B3 Gate), Bucharest, Romania www.mnac.ro Before the opening of the exhibition HEARTBEAT 22 | 192 new artworks in the MNAC Collection, the first edition of the MNAC International Academy public debate takes place, with special guests Frances MORRIS - Director, Tate Modern, Dr. Zoran ERIĆ - independent curator, former Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade (both jury members in the public art acquisition session, MNAC 2022) and artist Ana Maria Micu. “MNAC International Academy is a hybrid event concept, bordering between academic colloquium and informal professional meetings, combining artist talks, discourses on curatorial practices, critical analysis, travelogues, and so on. A session lasts 90 minutes and has a fixed number of three speakers, each representing a different discipline, generation and country." — Călin Dan, MNAC Bucharest Director “When we mount exhibitions and we have this tendency to offer a painting a white space around it, it is not because, I think, the white is beneficial, but because we want to accommodate what the painting is manifesting. And my assumption was that what spreads around an image is another image. And I started to make these experiments with picture-in-picture types of collages, that I reproduce in drawing and painting, and then, as I was working, I noticed that my works on the wall interact with the way my studio looks, and I made a point of capturing these situations that happen in my apartment.” — Ana Maria Micu, during MNAC International Academy, March 16th, 2023; photo credit: Gabriela Pană / MNAC Bucharest go to facebook live video ⮕ |
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THIS IS NOT AN ARTSPACE. ANA MARIA MICU
Curators: Alina Șerban and Ștefania Ferchedău Opening | Thursday, 2 March 2023, 18:00 - 21:00 Visiting schedule | 3 March - 1 April 2023 Wednesday - Friday, 16:00 - 19:00 (& by request) Venue|The Institute of the Present, Erou Ion Călin 19 St., Bucharest www.institutulprezentului.ro Otto Felt: Drawing is just one step away from animation. And it seems to be an important one for you, although your work is often read in the light of painting. How did this transition happen? And what was important for you to notice, and to portray, other than the canvas or paper? Ana Maria Micu: It’s not an obvious transition, and it took me many years to do it. The first observation that led me to animation is that when you draw, from the very beginning, when you mark the paper with the first dot, the image begins its process of emergence with a certain degree of independence that you cannot control. That first dot already has a role in the final image, but even though you have drawn the dot yourself, you cannot yet determine what that role is. The image is always ahead of you, and that has fascinated me for years. I wanted to document exactly what I was drawing, in real time, so I could then look back and see what was happening. If you have the patience to look, the animation unfolds in front of you which, to me, is absolutely charming, but it can also be boring if you are not interested. And to overcome this boredom, I have found a few formulas, and after several experiments, and I have worked some of them out. While documenting the appearance of a particular image, I now want to introduce moments of delight and reward for the viewer, who is given the opportunity to recognise moving characters, abstract signs suggesting figuration, or glimpses of narrative. There are animations hidden within any painting or drawing, or any work of art. And I am referring to a processual, not to the concrete meaning of the term ‘animation.’ I use this medium in a different way to other artists. Linguistically, the correct form would be ‘moving images.’ The way I see them is without sound, always accompanying a static image, and displayed as close to the image as possible. My animations are evidence that something happened. go to project ⮕ |
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LEFT HAND TO DISTANT VIEW
Solo Show by Ana Maria Micu The 4th floor of The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest Curator: Simona Vilău Opening | 8 December 2022, 19:00 Dates | 8 December 2022 - 16 April 2023 Location|MNAC Bucharest - Palace of Parliament, Izvor 2 - 4 St., Wing E4, Acces from Calea 13 Septembrie (B3 Gate), Bucharest, Romania Visiting hours: Wednesday - Sunday, 11:00 - 19:00 www.mnac.ro An existential crossroads, a relocation and a new life, re-constructed seven years ago, define the exhibition signed by Ana Maria Micu, Left Hand To Distant View. In the museum space, where she works site-specific, one discovers an entire universe, built step by step, with great discipline, by the hands of an attentive and courageous artist, according to a list of needs very well identified by herself. The working process is subsidiary to introspection and analysis and aims to create a seemingly impenetrable habitat, like a protective womb, rounded off in successive layers of memory and translucent images, from which grow the roots of a new world and an expanding organism (oeuvre). ― Simona Vilău, Life from Zero to Far go to project ⮕ |
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