Solo expo review, artist Liliana Basarab, Borderline Space, Iasi (17 June - 29 July, 2016) curated by Cătălin Gheorghe

TALENT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC, ART IS NOT A LUXURY (The Grasshopper and the Ant)
Solo exhibition: artist Liliana Basarab
Borderline Space, Iași (17 June - 29 July, 2016)
Curator: Cătălin Gheorghe; performers: Petronela Grigorescu and Bogdan Pălie; project designer: Costel Chirilă

Text by Mihaela Varzari
Published with Revista ARTA, issue 30/8, print version, 2018

This three fold project of the visual artist Liliana Basarab (b. 1979) traverses into the area of installation bordering self-curated art works. The video, featuring two performers sitting round a table, is the documentation of the performance during the opening. When browsing on-line data available on a computer in a corner, it becomes apparent that the script is based on short and concise excerpts from international artists, activists and politicians’ public discourses, forming a live archive organized by key words in both English and Romanian. This constitutes the research part of the project, which is still gathering information even now, one year after its initiation, a reflection on how meaning is formed in our live-streaming era (accessible on http://lilianabasarab.com/greierelesifurnica).

Liliana Basarb, TALENT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC, ART IS NOT A LUXURY

(The Grasshopper and the Ant) 2016, ceramic sculpture. Courtesy the artist

Basarab’s work doesn’t suffer from the incomprehensible or the irrational attributed to the classical Western artist responsible for the maintenance of such myths as the autonomy of art. Following from her interest in working with the medium of ceramic based sculpture, two representations of the grasshopper and the ant, plus a dialogue bubbles are mounted on a wall. Aesop’s famous characters appear here half human, half animal following from children’s books and animation. This ludic quality runs through her previous work, also prompted by her constant engagement with children through workshops, which sometimes become art projects in themselves, like in Imagine Beauty! Postcard project, (2003-2004)[1].  For this  project, Basarab worked with a group of 8 to 12 years old girls from a schools in Tătărași district in Iași and was hosted by the local Post Office.

The paradox proposed by the title together with the subtitle, TALENT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC, ART IS NOT A LUXURY (The Grasshopper and the Ant) is prepared to give a lot away and it could be rewritten as a dialogue between two interlocutors: the first is a conservative and essentialist European high culture nostalgic while the second follows the path laid out by Joseph Beuys interested in the social function of art. Who is the lazy, irresponsible hedonist and who is the goody-goody, hard working ant? No answer would be satisfying enough but I sympathize with the grasshopper not because he doesn’t receive any help from the ant but because I see him having to perform the role of the rebel, he who just plays his guitar in the summer and starves in the winter to the point of self-destruction. When did we become subject to the injunction to rebel? 

Liliana Basarab, TALENT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC, ART IS NOT A LUXURY

(The Grasshopper and the Ant) 2016

Exhibition view features performers Petronela Grigorescu and Bogdan Pălie. 

Courtesy the artist

Revisiting classical themes of Western art like beauty or truth has been taken up by Basarab in the past. I distinctively remember seeing the documentation of her performance titled, Truth/s (Adevăr/Adevăruri) (2004–2005)[2] where an artist friend is asked to perform truth in a 15 min video. Graduated in 2002 from the media specific training, at G. Enescu Arts University where such categories like truth and beauty were still believed to be solid, universal pillars, Basarab revisited them when she started developing her own career. The morale of the fable is rescued is seems from a political populist discourse of simple black and white choices and subdued to art’s vocabulary. Basarab’s work is grounded on the current reality and the fragments composing the script make reference to the relevance of art and its incestuous relationship to the market questioning the presumptuous autonomy of art. This is also reflected in the presentation of this project, where the documentation is incorporated into the art project itself. 

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[1] This project took place in other places like Chisinau, Helsinki, Amsterdam amounting to a total on 500 post cards and it involved adults as well.

[2] Evening of performances curated by Alex Moldovan, hosted by ICR London, 2007.

***

Artist Liliana Basarab interviewed by Mihaela Varzari, 27 septembrie, 2013

Interviu cu Liliana Basarab realizat de Mihaela Varzari 27 septembrie, 2013 Aș vrea să o prezint pe artista Liliana Basarab mai întîi ca pe o prietenă dragă şi apoi ca artistǎ vizualặ. Liliana Basarab locuiește momentan în București dar și-a început cariera la Iași, la începutul anilor 2000. Practica ei de natură conceptuală s-a dezvoltat pe parcursul ultimilor 10 ani pentru a cuprinde diverse medii de reprezentare cum ar fi performance, sculptură, desen, video etc. In seria de lucrari intitulată monuments-for-concepts (2007–2010) interesul continuu pentru realitățile sociale a determinat-o să lucreze cu noțiuni așa-zise eterne cum ar fi 'frumusețea' sau 'adevarul'. Cu ludicitatea-i caracteristică, aceste lucrări devin examinări publice a modului în care modificările sociale și politice recente impactează construirea identităților. Este acceptat că fiecare generație își reconstruiește în mod sistematic valorile ei. Intr-o societate care promovează individualismul dar nu și un sistem invidual de valori, nu e de mirare că aspirațiile noastre se vor dovedi a fi uniforme. Proiectul monuments-for-concepts al Lilianei declanșeaza atât perspective colective cât și percepții personale despre valorile individuale cu care operam zilnic. Dacă autonomia începe cu examinarea sistemului valorilor moștenite, atunci prezența unui obiect atât de grandios cum ar fi sculptura unui câstigator, crează doar iluzia unui premiu. *** MV: Am selectat seria de lucrări monuments-for-concepts care face parte din proiectul 1:1, pe care l-am curatoriat si care a fost găzduit de atelier35, București (5 septembrie-5 octombrie 2013)pentru bogata experiență umană, înregistrată pe durata a 3 ani, între 2007 și 2010, timp în care s-au desfășurat cele 4 rezidențe. Ce anume te-a determinat să insiști pe aceste comunități temporare, cum le-ai numit tu într-o discuție personală, și cum relaționezi acest interes cu anii petrecuți ca studentă la facultatea de arte din Iași.   LB: Aș considera practica mea mai mult ca pe o contra-reacție la sistemul de învățământ din România, care te specializează în tehnică de studio. Cred că acum 10 ani am decis că nu mă interesează să fiu artistă de studio și că vroiam să fac artă cu implicații sociale, dimensiune a artei care nu era problematizată de către profesorii mei în nici un fel. Acum nu mă mai raportez critic la anii petrecuți la universitatea de artă, accept acest fapt și sunt bucuroasă că am beneficiat de un sistem de învățământ gratuit. Încerc să asimilez ce am învățat și merg mai departe.  MV: Tocmai aici vroiam să ajung. Pentru că sistemul de educație românesc te-a învățat doar tehnic să fii artistă, ceea ce presupune metode clasice, cum ai început să faci artă de interes social acum 10 ani? Ce te-a forțat, determinat să adopti această poziție, cea pe care o ocupi acum?  LB: Atunci nu știam termenii aceștia dar instinctual realizasem că nu mă puteam limita la tehnici și atâta tot. Nu am înțeles niciodată de ce trebuie să faci natură statică cu oale de lut dacă tu, ca om, nu ești înconjurat de oale de lut. Pur și simplu, cred că fără să fi știut ce însemna artă participatorie acum 10 ani, am ajuns la concluzia că artista nu trebuie să fie închisă într-un studio, ea cu creația ei. Poziția de artistă trebuie împărțită și prin aceasta mă refer la statutul de artistă, care fie privilegiat sau nu, iarăși poate fi impartășit cu alții și astfel se repartizează și responsabilitatea. Artista nu mai este singura persoană care creează și se semnează.  MV: Să sperăm că nu mai se mai ocupa nimeni de oale de lut la Iași în felul acesta. Ai putea numi o anume perioadă sau ceva care a cauzat ruptura între învățământul academic clasic, pe care l-ai urmat și poziția ta de acum? LB: Începutul, că să spun așa, a fost performance-ul Beauty Mark, în 2001, un proiect important pentru mine care vorbea despre vizibilitate. Persoanele participante primeau un beauty mark/semn de frumusețe, care se lipea pe față, ca un semn distinctiv, menit sa constientizeze prezența. Performance-ul a fost documentat și a făcut parte din expoziția Frontiera organizată la Baia Publică din Iași. Știam pe atunci că vreau să fac ceva simplu. Aveam în minte un performance-ul lui Dan Perjovski, care dădea noroc cu lumea pe stradă. Mai târziu am aflat că a fost realizat și la Tel Aviv in timpul festivalului de performance Blurr in 1997. MV: Am auzit și eu de el, imi aduc aminte ceva, când spunea have a nice day?     LB: Da. Și atunci m-am gândit cum aș putea implica mediul fotografic pentru a lucra colaborativ. Pentru mine, acum 12 ani aceste noțiuni erau încă confuze (încă sunt) dar eram convinsă că doar execuția tehnică nu era suficientă. Cu toate că o parte din lucrările mele sunt produse în studio, fie că sunt animație, video, sculptură sau desen, majoritatea producției mele implică participanți pentru pentru a fi realizată.  MV: Aș vrea să mă reîntorc la ceea ce ai spus adineauri despre proiectul Beauty Mark. De era important atunci să lucrezi cu acest concept, cel al vizibilității? Este ceva care te preocupa și acum? LB: Beauty Mark e un cod pentru frumusețe, un mecanism de declanșare a vizibilității care poate schimba modul de percepție persoanală. Este legat de ce am relatat anterior, de dorința de a ieși din izolarea atelierului, de a te muta în stradă, de a interacționa, de a comunica. Era important să schimb dinamica participanților clasici implicați în lucrările de artă și anume, executant și privitor. Participanții au fost aleși pe criterii total aleatorii, ei reprezentând contextul de la momentul respectiv.  MV: Analizând lucrările tale de artă participatorie, am identificat într-un articol pe care l-am scris anul trecut,faptul că direcția urmată de tine este una antropologică prin prisma faptului că cercetezi anumite concepte universale în diferite zone geografice. Intrebarea este cum ajungi să folosești un concept sau altul?  LB: Alegerea conceptului, excepție făcând primul proiect unde conceptele au fost alese dinainte, este o parte foarte importantă a procesului de producție, și survine ca urmare a identificării contextului economico-politic al unei regiuni geografice anume. La ultimul proiect, cel din Dayton, SUA, 2010 provocarea a survenit odată cu analiza acelei regiuni și implicit încercarea de a înțelege poziția mea de străină, de rezidentă temporară, în relație cu acel context, și cum aș putea reflecta asta. Alegerea participanților a fost făcută într-un mod foarte personal și intuitive, și am avut plăcuta surprinză să aflu ulterior, când am vorbit cu diverse alte persoane, care mi-au confirmat că participanții chiar erau reprezentativi pentru Dayton. Nu am avut intenția de a reprezenta toate clasele sociale, de exemplu sau toate vârstele. MV: Așadar tu devii prima persoană care judecă participanții după aspectul fizic și nu ai pretenția de a te sustrage canoanelor cu care se operează în general. Cum de ai ajuns să folosești conceptul de acceptabilitate în Dayton? LB: Conceptul a reflectat în mod direct competiția acerbă promovată de SUA. Dayton, în schimb nu mi s-a părut un oraș atât de competitiv. De exemplu, erau artiști care lucrau foarte bine fără să ascundă secrete de meserie. Dayton e un oraș cunoscut pentru invențiile lor, și anume Frații Wright, cei care au inventat avionul, sunt de acolo. Mi s-a părut că acolo se trăiește cu impresia că poți să fii și mai puțin bun pentru că e tot foarte bine. Dacă e să mă refer la un alt concept, cel al normalității, el devine important mai ales prin prisma faptului că este un termen des folosit cu precădere de  mass media.  MV: Dorința pentru acest titlu de supremație dă naștere unor păreri conflictuale. Sunt specialiști români care spun că Aurel Vlaicu e primul aviator care a pilotat propriul avion în lume. Ce bine însă că nu ne ocupăm de adevăruri științifice pentru că am fi avut o problemă acum. Dar să ne întoarcem la ale noastre când spui undeva că idea sau conceputul de normalitate deținea un interest deosebit pentru tine. Unde a fost realizat proiectul? LB: În Rahova, București. Normalitatea acceptată de unii poate fi complet diferită de normalitatea altcuiva. În același timp reprezintă și starea de normalitate la care România tinde să ajungă, dealtfel o expresie des folosită. În perioada în care lucram la acest proiect, avea loc Gay Parade în București și în acel timp au apărut postere pe stradă cu Familia Normala, reprezentând mama, tata și copilul, o încadrare foarte restrictivă a ceea ce poate însemna familie. MV: Celula societății care trebuie să se reproducă. LB: Da. Și nu este permisă nicio deviație de la 'normal'. Prin folosirea conceptului, am încercat să deschid discuții despre ce înseamnă normalitate. MV: Discuția asta despre valori impuse sau formate cultural și care se schimbă cu fiecare deceniu, face trecerea către întrebarea următoarea pregătită de mine. Mă refer tot la monuments-for-concepts, care documentează trecerea de la comunism la capitalism. Care e rolul jucat de țările fost comuniste din Europa în defăimarea capitalismului? Și când fac această distincție mă refer la bogata experiență, care ne singularizează. Aș vrea aici să introduc exemplul Sanjei Iveković, artistă din fosta Yugoslavie, a cărei artă feministă este îmbogățită sau are în plus interesul față de realitățile sociale. Cum crezi că artiștii din est 'profită' de această experiență, și cum se reflectă asta în discursul tău artistic. Nu vreau să mă fixez pe diferențele dintre artiștii din est și vest. LB: Cred că am dificultăți în a înțelege întrebarea ta, de aceea răspunsul meu vine cu o întrebare: ce ar putea urma după capitalism? Înțeleg pozitionarea critică față de discursul politic actual dar lucrurile nu sunt atât de simple. Lozinci ca ‘jos capitalismul’ sunt prea simpliste și nu știu ce ar putea să ne pregătească pentru ce ar veni după. Discursul meu artistic nu este strict unul politic și nu mă identific cu zona asta de cercetare sau activism.Dacă arta mea poate fi interpretată ca marcând trecerea de la communism la capitalism, nu am nimic împotrivă. Nu știu… Ți se pare? MV: Întrebarea mea încerca să dezvăluie cum te raportezi la trecutul României,și dacă deține vreo relevanță în practica ta. LB: Cred că de fapt da, este important dacă e să ne gândim la trecerea de la o societata bazată pe colectiv la una care promovează valorile individuale. Încerc să proiectez în practica mea această rupere abruptă de valori și implicațiile ei. MV: Cele 4 rezidențe s-au soldat cu busturile câștigătorilor expuse în spațiul public. Care este importanța acestui gest? LB: Pentru mine este importantă subminarea modului în care, în mod tradițional, sculpturile publice sunt destinate unor personalități. În cazul lucrărilor mele este un alt parcurs de producere a sculpturii dar finalitatea, la prima vedere este aceeași, e o sculptură clasică, un bust.   MV: Interestul tău în revedincarea spațiului public se apropie de practica altor artiști din România, din a cărei generație, după părerea mea, faci parte și anume, Anca Benera, plus duo-ul artistic Mona Vatamanu și Florin Tudor. LB: Mă bucur că spui asta pentru că apreciez foarte mult practica lor.   MV: Tu aduci în spațiul public interesul tău în reprezentare, ceea ce conferă practicii tale o notă personală atât de valoroasă pentru tine. Cum te raportezi la acest interes în reprezentare?  LB: Interesul meu este se manifestă prin reprezentarea anumitor concepte în diferite forme, cum ar fi frumusețe în formatul de carte poștală. În acest gen de lucrări focusul nu cade pe ceea ce reprezint dar pe modalitățile folosite, plus mecanismele întrebuințate pentru negocierea fiecărei lucrări în parte, într-un cuvânt demersul parcurs pentru a ajunge la reprezentarea finală. Fiecare concept e important prin prisma faptului că reflectă contextual dar în egala măsură este și modul prin care se ajunge la partea finală. Dacă aș fi realizat ’Normality’ în Statele Unite rezultatul ar fi fost total diferit. Lucrările mele sunt despre reprezentare dar mai ales despre modul în care fiecare concept este diferit ‘implementat’, fiecare pas ducând la o ‘îngustare’, care pregătește rezultatul final.  MV:Vorbim așadar de o reprezentare mediată prin negocierea cu participanții, ceea ce mi se pare un element destul de puternic în aceste lucrări. Reprezentarea este atacată nu frontal ci printr-un detur, unde participanții devin co-autori dar și avatari, ceea ce le suspendă identitatea, oferindu-le în felul acesta un instrument de detașare față de propria persoana. Cum s-a schimbat practica artei participatorii incepând cu 2000, de când activezi pe scena artei?  LB: Cred că arta participatorie a început să fie trendy și sexy (și spun asta în sens derogatoriu). Pot spune că e chiar cerută de curatorii anumitor instituții iar asta duce către o concentrare din nou pe mediu (tehnică) și nu neapărat pe concept, un lucru relativ periculos aș putea spune. *** Liliana Basarab interviewed by Mihaela Varzari,the 27th of September, 2013 Translated from Romanian to English by Mihaela Varzari *** I would like to introduce Liliana Basarab, who is a very dear friend and artist. Liliana Basarab is currently based in Bucharest, but began her career in Iași, at the beginning of 2000. Her conceptual practice has been developing over the last 10 years and she uses a variety of media including performance, sculpture, drawing, video etc. In her series of works, titled monuments-for-concepts (2007–2010) Liliana’s ongoing  interest in social realities has led her work with so called eternal notions as beauty and truth. With her characteristic playfulness, these works become public examinations into how the recent socio-political changes affect the way we view ourselves. It is certain that every age systematically reconstructs its own value system. In a society promoting individualism and not an individual belief system, it is no wonder that our aspirations and dreams turn out to be the same. Liliana’s monuments-for-concepts trigger the collective perspective as well as the individual account on values we operate with on a daily basis. If autonomy begins with the challenge of an inherited set of values, then having such a grandiose object, as a sculpture of the winner can only create the illusion of achievement. *** MV:The series of works monuments-for-concepts was chosen to be part of the project 1:1, hosted by atelier35 in Bucharest during 5 Sep – 5 Oct 2013 based on its rich human experience, registered throughout the 4 residencies, which took place over a period of 3 years, between 2007 and 2010. What drove you to work with such persistence? Were you involved with these, so called, temporary communities, as you referred to in a personal conversation.And also how do you relate this type of practice to the time spent as an art student in Iași. LB: I would consider my practice more of a counter reaction to the Romanian education system, which focuses on studio technique specializations. I think that it was 10 years ago, when I decided that I had no interest in being a studio artist and wanted to make socially engaged art and deal withissue which had not even been mentioned by my teachers at the university. I have stopped now looking back in anger at my art university years and accept the past, being glad that I could benefit from a free education. I am trying to assimilate what I have learnt and move on.   MV: This is what I wanted to point out. Having established that the Romanian educational system taught you traditional artistic crafting, how did you get involved in social art 10 years ago? What forced you, inspired you to adopt your current position? LB: I wasn’t aware of this terminology at the time but instinctively I realized that technicality wasn’t enough.I never understood why we were required to paint still life with clay pots, when in my life I was t surrounded by clay pots? Without knowing 10 years ago what participatory art was, I have simply reached the conclusion that the artist shouldn’t be behind closed doors in a studio, alone with her creation. The artist’s position needsto be shared, actually the status of the artist, whether it is considered privileged or not, also needs to be shared and with it implicitly the responsibility. The artist is not the only person who creates and signs anymore. MV: Let’s hope that no one in Iași deals with clay pots in that way. Could you mention a specific moment in time which caused the shift between the classic academic education and the position you are occupying now? LB: No. At the beginning, as to say, there was the performance of Beauty Mark in 2001, workwhich became very important to me and dealt with visibility. The participants were asked to stick a beauty mark on their faces, as a sign of distinction meant to make one aware of their presence. I took photos before the opening, which were then exhibited in a group show at the Public Bath in Iași. I knew then that I wanted to do something simple. I had seen a performance by the artist Dan Perjovschi, when he was shaking hands with the people passing in the street. Later on I had found out that it took place in Tel Aviv, in 1997 during the Performance Festival Blurr.   MV: I remember that, when he was saying Have a nice day.  LB: Yes. I started thinking about how I could use the photographic medium in the work with thecommunity. 12 years ago,these notions, were still confusing (still are) but I was convinced that technique based execution wasn’t sufficient. Even though a part of my works is being produced in the studio by employing animation, video, sculpture and drawing, the majority ofmy workbody requires participants in order to be realised. MV: I would like to go back to what you just said about the Beauty Mark project. Why was it important to work with the concept of visibility? Is it still on your mind? LB: Beauty Mark is a code of beauty, a mechanism which unleashes different ways of personal perception. It is in relation to what I have just mentioned, the wish to counteract the isolation imposed by the studio, to go out in the street, to interact, to communicate. It was important to change the classical dynamic between audience and practitioner. The participants were chosenrandomly, more precisely it happened they were passing by, they represented the context at that moment in time. MV: Having looked carefully at your projects involvingparticipants, I have identified in an article I wrote 2 years ago, that you employ an anthropological mode of inquiry, based on the fact that you are investigating universal concepts, such as normality in various geographical areas. The question is what determines how you use this or that concept. LB: The choice of the concept, apart from the first project, whenthe concepts were selected beforehand, is a very important part within the production process and it emerges as the result of identifying the economic and political context of a given geographical area. With respect to the last project, the one I did in Dayton, US in 2010, the challenge has arisen while analysing that region and implicitly my effort to understand my own position as an outsider and how I could express it. The participants’ selection was made in a very personalised and intuitive way and I was pleasantly surprised to find when speaking to the locals, that the participants were actually representative for Dayton. It wasn’t my intention to represent all the social classes, for example or ages. MV: Therefore you become the first person to judge the participants by their physical aspect and you accept being subjected to the visual canons in use at large. How did you end up using the concept of acceptability in Dayton? LB: The concept reflected directly the tight competition promoted in the US. Dayton, on the other hand, didn’t seem that competitive. For example, there were good artists who weren’t afraid to share the secrets of their ‘jobs’. Dayton is a city known for its inventions, the Wright Brothers are from there and they invented the airplane. It seems that in Dayton one can live under the impression that one can be lesser and it is still fine. Making reference to another concept now, the one of normality, it is becoming important based on itsextensive media usage. MV: The eagerness for supreme titles gives rise to different opinions. There are Romanian specialists who say that Aurel Vlaicu was the first man who flew the first ever built airplane in the world. How lucky we are not to have to establish scientific truths, as we would have been in difficulty now. Let’s go back to the moment when say the idea or the concept of normality held a big interest for you. Where did it happen? LB: In Rahova, Bucharest, the normality accepted by some can be completely different from somebody else’s normality. At the same time it also represents the status of normality Romania aspires to reach, an expression often used. While working on this project, Gay Parade was taking place in Bucharest and during the same period there some street posters featuring 'the normal family', mother, father and the baby, a restrictive framing of a the notion of a family. MV:The societal cell which needs reproducing itself. LB: Yes. No deviation from the normal is permitted. By employing this concept I tried to open discussion about what normality could mean. MV: This topic on culturally imposed or informed values, which also change with every decade, marks the transition to the next question I prepared for you. I am referring again to monuments-for-concepts which documents the transition from communism to capitalism. What role do you attribute to the countries from the east part of Europe, within the defamation of capitalism? And when I make this distinction I am referring to our rich experience which particularizes us. I would like to introduce the example of Sanja Iveković, an artist from ex-Yugoslavia, whose feminist art is enriched or is distinct because of its social interests. How do the artists from the Eastern part of Europe profit from this experience and how is it reflected in your artistic discourse? It is not my intention to make a fixation out of the differences between eastern and western artists. LB: I don’t think I understand your question very well, therefore my reply comes with another question: what could come after capitalism? I understand the critical positioning vis-à-vis the current political discourse but things are not as simple. Signs like “No More Capitalism” are too simplistic and I don’t know what could prepare us for what would come afterwards. My artistic practice is not strictly political and I don’t identify myself with this area of research or activism. If my art can be interpreted as marking the transition between communism and capitalism then I have nothing against it. I don’t know. Do you think so? MV: My question was directed at revealing your relationship to Romania’s past and whether it becomes relevant to you as an artist.    LB: I think that it is important if we take into account the transition from a collective based society to an individual values promoting one. I try in my practice to project this abrupt rupture of values and its implications. MV: The four residencies finalized with the winners’ sculptures exhibited in the public space. What is the importance of this gesture? LB: For me it is important to subvert the way in which, traditionally public sculptures featuring hero like figures, occupied the public space. In my work I follow a different production process but the result, at firstis the same, a classical sculpture, a bust. MV: Your interest in reclaiming the public space seems close to the practice of other artists from Romania. Thegeneration you are part, to mention just a few, namely Anca Benera and the artistic duo Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor.   LB: I am glad you are saying this because I appreciate their practices a lot. MV: You bring in the public space, your interest in representation, which offers your practice a personal note so valuable to you. How do you understand your relationship to representation? LB: My interest is manifested through representing certain concepts in different formats, as it happened in the case of the beauty concept being represented through cards. This type of work does not focus on what I represent but on the methodology I use, plus the mechanisms employed for negotiating each work individually, namely the process developed to reach the final representation. Each concept becomes important as it represents the context and it is as important as the process used to reach the final stage. If I were to have realised “Normality” in the United States, the result would have been very different. My works talk about representation but more importantly about how each concept is differently ‘implemented’ and each stage involves a narrow down of the project, leading towards the final result. MV: We are therefore referring to a representation mediated through the negotiation with the participants, which becomes quite a strong element within these works. Representation is attacked frontally but laterally, ushered by the participants becoming co-authors and avatars at the same time, which suspends their identities in order to offer them an instrument of reflection. How do you see the participatory art being changed since 2000, when you started acting on the artistic scene? LB: I think that participatory art starts being trendy and sexy (and I mean it in a derogative way). I can say that it started being requested by some of the curators of institutions and this put an emphasis on the medium (technique) again and not on the concept, a relatively damaging aspect, I could say. *** Acest interviu face parte din catalogul on-line 1:1, parte integrantă a expoziției cu același nume, curatoriat de Mihaela Varzari și găzduită de atelier35, București.

1:1 curated by Mihaela Varzari, PRESS RELEASE, atelier 35, Bucharest (5 Sep - 5 Oct 2013)

Press Release

1:1

Opening: Thursday, 5 September 2013, 6 PM

Ziad Antar (Lebanon/France) 

Liliana Basarab (Romania)

Heath Bunting (U.K.)

Victor Man (Romania/Germany)

Deimantas Narkevičius (Lithuania) 

Tanja Ostojić (Serbia/Germany)

Curated by Mihaela Varzari

for exhibition imagines pls follow: http://atelier35.eu/group-show-1-1/

Still from Tokyo Tonight by Ziad Antar, 2003
Courtesy the artist

In his book Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1889), Lewis Carroll described an impossible map. In this fantasy, a professor explains how his country´s cartographers were experimenting with ever larger maps until they finally made one with a scale of a mile to a mile. “It has never been spread out, yet”, he says. “The farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So now we use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.”

   The art project 1:1 brings together six international contemporary artists whose works exploit the concept of ‘mapping’. This concept becomes here a tool for (re)defining subjectivity (in)formed by and through complex bio-political forces. Physical borders start taking the shape of mental borders and representation comes into sharp focus. 

   Through the selected works, the project discuses the European Union´s intransigent attitude during negotiations with future member states and the reverberations of their subsequent integration. Namely the economic dictatorship that followed.Therefore the project points towards the impact that Europe, this increasingly powerful united nations territory, bears globally. 1:1 addresses the complex relationship to memory, citizenship and identity in a confrontational and deliberately evasive way. Its point of departure is the constant pulling between wanting and needing of the newly affiliated territories to European Union.

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   In his documentary Disappearance of a Tribe (2005) Deimantas Narkevičius, investigates the remnants of a culture in the context of Lithuania´s integration and unmasks the uncritical acceptance of new standards. The title is charged with meaning, where we are not witnessing the disappearance of a family but rather that of a tribe. From an anthropological perspective, the concept of tribe implies a unique culture and lifestyle, as well as values and rituals common to its members. 

Liliana Basarab proceeds as an anthropologist but in different geographical locations of Europe and US considering people’s fantasies, self-indulgence or otherness in the documentation of her series monuments-for-concepts.com. This series is a result of a series of four residencies during 2007 and 2010. Addressing the foundation of public monument, which in Romania, replaced the history of the revolution, her work opens up dialogue, as opposed to what happens to all monuments, which to hastily conclude debates and perversely take over the task of remembrance.

   Ziad Antar’s enigmatic and multi-layered work, Tokyo Tonight, deals with global power structure. Through the voices of three shepherds, the word “Tokyo” is uttered three times as a mantra – a mantra can be distinguished as that which has a personal meaning but none to the outside world. According to Samuel Huntington, the failure to understand one another has been located in the clash of civilization, which stands as a false problematization. In other words, issues of inequality, exploitation and injustice are instead perceived as issues of intolerance.^[1] Within the same vein, Tanja Ostojc’s Untitled / After Courbet (L´origine du monde, 46 x 55 cm), 2004 goes beyond the reverberations of the recent history of Europe, namely the EU integration, and takes a firm stance in the face of Art History, asking implicitly (and explicitly) “for whom and by whom has it been written?“. As the result of the media scandal in Austria (December 2005) the artwork was censored. Due to the increasing demand for the image on behalf of lay audience, the artist produced a small edition of posters. The show presents one of these reproductions of the original image.

   In The Status Project (2011) Bunting analyses the relation between soil and national identity, through a series of computer generated maps, in a militant project, which attracted the EU’s attention. He challenges the privileged status attributed to the work of art and disregards such notions as the separation of the aesthetic from the rest of human life and prioritizes information and action. Victor Man and Heath Bunting address the notion of nationalism in the age of global citizenship but employ totally different aesthetics. With the sculpture Untitled (Coats) (2007), Man has the inserted the Romanian national flag into the lining of 3 coats that hang benignly on a coat hanger. The oblique presentation of the symbol might suggest a surreptitious and perhaps guilty embrace of national identity, this is transfigured as something private though inextricably tied to a collective experience.

1 S. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity,  (Simon & Schcester, 2001), p. 86

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Workshops and events: 

Workshop, Survival Skills with the artist Heath Bunting

7 September 2013, 10 AM – 6PM, Băneasa Forest, Bucharest

Heath Bunting invites you to take part in his workshop Survival Skills in the forest Băneasa, outside Bucharest. The workshop is aimed at anyone who wants to spend the day in the artist’s company and learn about edible plants, building tree houses or hunting.

Performance, The Shoe Maker with the artist Liliana Basarab

5 September, 2013, 7 PM, during the project’s opening, Atelier 35, Șelari 13, Bucharest
Liliana Basarab invites the participants to the opening to wear three pairs of sandals with entangled back straps. This workshop represents the translation of the artist’s older ceramic based sculpture, titled Family Relationships, 2008 into a performative intervention.

Feature Film Screening, Why Mickey Rourke?

23 September, atelier 35, Șelari 13, Bucharest

The choice for showing these two films comes from the influence they had on the generation which was in its teens or early adulthood in 1989 and was marked by the characters played by American actor, Mickey Rourke.

91/2 Weeks, directed by Adriane Lyne, USA, 1986, 1h 34 min, starring Mickey Rourke & Kim Basinger;

The Wilde Orchid, directed by Zalman King, USA, 1989, 1h 47 min, starring Mickey Rourke, Jacqueline Bisset & Carre Otis.

Finissage

Presentation of the project’s on-line publication.

 ***

Supported by Atelier 35, Bucharest

This project was realized without any financial help and we would like to thank the invited artists and Plan B Gallery in Berlin for their generosity.

The point of departure for this project is based on Mihaela Varzari's MA Dissertation in History in Art, Between Wanting and Needing, Contemporary Art in Eastern Europe, supervised by the Prof Dr Lanfranco Aceti, 2008, Birkbeck College, London.

***

Artists' bios
Ziad Antar

*1978, Paris/Beirut

Solo/group:

Here, Elsewhere, La Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseilles, FR(2013);

Expired, Selma Feriani Gallery, London, UK(2011);

Suspended Space, Pompidou Centre, Paris, FR(2011);

Terres de Pomme de Terre, Almine Rech Gallery, Paris, FR(2009);

The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, the New Museum, New York, USA (2009)

Liliana Basarab

*1979, Bucharest

Solo/group:

LUCK /Do I feel lucky? Do ya, punk?’, Glosna Gallery, Poznan, PL(2012);

Truth/s, APARTE gallery, Iași, RO(2011);

Truth/s, DVAC, Dayton Visual Art Centre, Dayton, Ohio, USA(2011);

Accidents, mutation and mistakes, MORA gallery , Bucharest, RO(2010);

Fight!, Vector gallery, Iași, RO (with Costel Chirilă)(2006)

Heath Bunting

*1966, Bristol

Solo/group:

The Status Project & The Netopticon, furtherfield art space, London, UK(2012);

HEATH BUNTING: STATUS PROJECT, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2012);

Disclosing The Invisible: Jill Magid and Heath Bunting, SKOR & Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL (2001);

Visitors Guide to London, Documenta 10, Kassel, DE (1997);

The Status Project, Transmediale, Berlin, DE (2011)

Deimantas Narkevičius

*1964, Vilnius

Solo/group:

Da Capo, Marino Marini Museo, Florence, IT(2013) Marino Marini Museo, Florence, IT(2013);

Performing Histories(1), MOMA, NY, USA (2012-2013);

A Tang of Lomo Film, Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin, DE (2012); Architektur und Film, Blue Box, The Head, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, DE(2011);

Restricted Sensation, gb agency, Paris, FR (2011);

BFI, Southbank Gallery, British Film Festival,BFI, London UK (2010)

Victor Man

*1974, Berlin/Cluj

Solo:

In un altro aprile, Villa Medici, Rome, IT(2013);

The White Shadow of His Talent, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, USA(2012);

Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, LU(2012);

Lazarus Protocol, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, SCT(2011);

If Mind Were All There Was, The Hayward, London, UK(2009)

Tanja Ostojić

*1974, Berlin

Solo/group:

Three/Free postcards, Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana, SI(2012);

Call the Witness, Venice Biennale, Venice, IT(2011);

Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA (2007);

I’ll Be Your Angel, Venice Biennale, Venice, IT(2001);

Personal Space, Manifesta 2, Musée d`Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg, LU(1998)

Mihaela Varzari

*1978

Published Articles:

What Does It Mean To Be Sophisticated? Renzo Martens Meets Bernadette Corporation, in collaboration with Cristina Bogdan, ARTA magazine(2012);

… and the winner is… Truth/s - project by Liliana Basarab, 2011, U.S., ARTA magazine(2012);

Points of view on Jens Haaning’s performance, Bicycle Holiday in Poland, 1979, Public Preparation’s catalogue Crisis Special, organized by curator Rael Artel (2010);

Review on Vanessa Billy at Who Shapes What – an exhibition by Vanessa Billy, Limoncello Gallery, www.thisistomorrow.info(2010);

Congo meets the West in fantasy, The Double Club in London, a Carsten Höller project by Fondazione Prada, Compromise of a European Integration: Points of View (Periferic Biennial, art as gift, 2009) IDEA/arts+society, 2010;

The Compromise of a European Integration: Points of View (Periferic Biennial, art as gift, 2009) published with IDEA/arts+society, 2010;

Curated Projects:

No Spitting -community based project”, funded by Tower Hamlets Homes,London, UK,invited artists: Marcin Dudek(PL/BE), Kazimierz Jankowski(UK), Othello de Souza(UK), 2010