 Revolutions Reloaded Werkstatt Rumänien Dan Acostioaei, Matei Bejenaru, Irina Botea, Calin Dan, Ion Grigorescu, Arnold Estefan, Iosif Kiraly, Szabolcs Kiss-Pal, Dan Mihaltianu, Aurelia Mihai, Duo van der Mixt, Dragos Platon, subREAL, Kriszta Szabo, Florin Tudor & Mona Vatamanu The exhibition "Revolutions Reloaded" is dedicated to the present Romanian artistic scene and is the result of a collaboration with the MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art) of Bucharest. Curated by Marco Scotini and Mihnea Mircan (curator of the MNAC in Bucharest), the aim of this exhibition is to present a selection of the top exponents of recent generations of Romanian artists, through a temporary picture and video archive. It takes place 15 years after the fall of communism in the Eastern European block, at a time in which the importance of the 1989 events seems strongly reduced, if not a remote past. "Revolutions Reloaded" is not limited to a plain post-communist cartography. It tries to focus on the contradictory spaces and the growing disparities of this very real "laboratory of the European future" in which the conflicts between different historical times and different resources coexist within the state of transition from the "welfare" condition to the new-liberal system. "Revolutions Reloaded" aims in fact to be a sort of database of Romanian artists' political reactions. A politically oriented art, not defined geographically, which finds a more vulnerable and realistic terrain here, in the impact with globalisation. The "revolutions" to which the title alludes are the sign of diverse ways in which emergency can be faced, freedom is understood, democracy is prepared and Romanian reality after the Revolution of 1989 is registered. "Revolutions Reloaded" stems from an important work such as "Dialogue with Comrade Ceausescu" (1978) by Ion Grigorescu. Ion Grigorescu (1945) is one of Romania's leading voices under the dictatorship. Since his first performances in the 1970s, he has been working on themes such as "reality" and "identity" - this work is both political and public, and has remained underground until the 1990s when even the videos we are now presenting exit a long period of censorship. Alongside other works with a historical connotation, such as "La Révolution dans le boudoir" by Dan Mihaltianu (class of 1954) and the picture archives of the famous group subREAL (founded in Bucharest, in 1990), there will also be works from the younger and emerging scene, such as media artists Florin Tudor & Mona Vatamanu (1974 & 1968), Aurelia Mihai (1968), Szabolcs Kiss-Pal (1967), who participated in the Prague Biennale 2003, Dragos Platon, Arnold Estefan, Dan Acostioaei, Irina Botea. An astute analysis of the contradictions in today's Romania will be presented by the docu-fictions by Kriszta Szabo and Duo van der Mixt. The works by these artists have a strong socio-political connotation, being centred around the theme of contemporary urban condition and in particular around the image of Bucharest. It is the true paradigm of crisis and escape, as in the analyses of the great communist housing estates by Florin Tudor & Mona Vatamanu and in the research by Calin Dan who through the "Sample City" video (2003) tries to recount the anthropological dimension of a city situated at the crossroads between European identity and Jewish diaspora, gypsy folklore and Stalinist aesthetics. The exhibition opens with a video with two tour-operators who lead us through the incredible Ceausescu Palace, now the Palace of the Parliament, and ends on the opposite side, with one of the most emotional, Rossellini-like shootings of the poverty of the entire Romanian countryside. Curated by Marco Scotini and Mihnea Mircan, in association with Galleria ARTRA, Milan. Exhibition: May 10 - June 5, 2004 Opening hours: Tue-Sat 12 - 7 pm PLAY gallery for still and motion pictures Hannoversche Strasse 1 D-10115 Berlin Telephone +49 (0)30 2758 2111 Fax +49 (0)30 2345 5753 www.pushthebuttonplay.com |
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