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periferic 4 (2000)

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Written by Administrator | 06 September 2011

periferic 4 (2000)

 

24-28 May 2000

The Turkish Bath of Iasi, Palace of Culture of Iasi, The Public Bath of Iasi, French Cultural Center of Iasi, National Theatre “Vasile Alecsandri” Iasi

 

 

Concept
BETWEEN CENTER AND PERIPHERY
Matei Bejenaru
Artist, curator of Periferic 4
1. The MCA, the Renaissance Society, the Center for Contemporary Photography, the Chicago Arts Institute, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Chicago Video Data Bank are the places in which you can meet contemporary art in Chicago. As for myself, an artist from the east of Europe, it was impressive to discover this density of places and events. While I was there, I found out during the discussions with artists and exhibition organizers that “the real center” of American contemporary art is divided between the East Coast (New York) and the West Coast (Los Angeles). The relation between center and periphery functions in America too, but within parameters altogether different from those I have estimated when I conceived the Periferic. But does this comparison really make any sense at all? I would say that it does, in the measure in which an understanding of the American context could help identify efficient strategies feasible in Romania as well. In what the American case is concerned, the issue consists in finding modalities through which certain local players (otherwise interesting artists) can become global players, all this taking place in the two centers mentioned above.
In what Romania is concerned, the main issue is the “cultural connection” to the civilized world of an isolated and poor post-communist society, facing a continuous identity crisis, insufficiently urbanized and with a non-competitive technology. The local and national specific features are related rather to the confrontation with the isolationist and conservative mentalities than to the effort to enter “the global trend” of the cultural artistic and managerial discourse. The interest in the Romanian contemporary artists is directly proportional with the interest in Romania as a whole. It seems even more difficult to accept the fact that the visibility of Romanian artists is influenced by the annual rate of inflation (as indicator of the economic performances), the level of outside investment, the quantity of IT (computers and software) in relation to the total number of inhabitants, the kilometers of highways built yearly, the number of phone stations, the quality of services, the annual number of foreign tourists visiting the country, the weight of the middle class in the Romanian society, the degree of local autonomy, the degree of corruption and of the separation of powers in the state. I made of course a subjective enumeration of objective indicators. Nevertheless, if their values will be closer to the European ones, the Romanian society will get a radiography that would resemble more those of modern countries, the international interest (not only cultural) will be higher, the number of opportunities will increase and, from our viewpoint, the medium time spent by international curators and managers in our country will no longer be reduced to the usual 24-48 hours of staying in Bucharest especially (Robert Fleck, one of the curators of the Manifesta 2 exhibition, said in an interview that in many of the periphery countries the artistic stage is extremely limited and everything takes place exclusively in the capital, where, in a coffee shop for instance, the artists meet all the time).
As a wrote with another occasion, I believe that the development of an infrastructure (institutions, galleries, publications, foundations, etc.) capable to promote contemporary art in Romania will be the natural result of the maturation (normalization) of the Romanian society and will lead both to the “synchronization” of the local artistic discourses with the international ones and to the efficient allocation of resources in a country that on medium term will remain poor. Like the institutions in Chicago I enumerated in the beginning, which are sponsored by private organizations and carry on their activities with money coming from their own funds or from those of different foundations, individuals and public financing projects, the important contemporary art events which took place in Romania during the passed years have been the result of private initiatives (foundations, organizations, etc.) 2, with the exception of the Board of Visual Arts within the Ministry of Culture which added a new dimension3 to the Romanian participation to the Biennial in Venice. Also, some art museums in Romania have “accepted” to house contemporary art exhibitions, without financial involvement or significant logistics.
As any change from a reference system to another supposes a transitory order in which the system’s state parameters experience uncontrollable oscillations of great amplitudes, the transition of the Romanian society from a certain economic and political order to another is a long and syncopated phenomenon, influenced by the initial reference level and by the way in which the process started (the cultural field is a delicate seismograph recording these changes). I believe that the second half of the ’90 has led to a maturation of the artistic and managerial discourses in the area of contemporary art and, if artists, curators and organizers will lucidly and coherently carry on their projects, we will be able to achieve also the “up-grade” concerning the international interest in the Romanian context.
2. Travelling by the TAROM Iasi-Bucharest flight one will be surprised to see that the plane first heads north to stop in Suceava. The principle of economic profitableness indicates us coldly that the number of passengers travelling by plane from Iasi to Bucharest is too small to assure a direct flight. But, we ask ourselves, who could be the potential passengers? Due to the high price of the ticket, they are, first of all, the businessmen, because we can not talk about a constant flux of foreign tourists. The absence of businessmen travelling to (from) Iasi makes me think that the local economic climate is not a favorable one either, which contributes essentially to the isolation of the city, isolation which affects also the cultural area. Where the economy is prosperous, the people are dynamic, they coordinate their actions following rational projects, they change and accept ideas which they do not always agree with, they circulate, cultivate the differences, build a civil society capable of protecting their interests, produce and consume symbolical (cultural) goods which reflect an open world based on freedom and individualism.
The isolation and the poor economic development of the city of Iasi influenced also the cultural environment, dominated by traditionalism and a damaging addiction to the past. The renewal to which we have been assisting during these last few years was not achieved within the monumental cultural institutions built up a century ago, but through the efforts of young intellectuals with European views who, although lacking economic or political power and not holding key positions in the system, have turned the cultural life in a more dynamic one and won the media confrontation with the conservatives. In this sense, the most important local daily newspaper (“Monitorul” – now with a national network) and the most prestigious cultural journal (“Timpul”) have housed in their pages the debates initiated by young writers and artists from Iasi.
The “Periferic” festival and the several exhibitions organized in Iasi during the past years have outlined a group of young visual artists interested in making and thinking contemporary art. Though their preoccupations may be different (from personal mythologies to social and political criticism), the thing that joins them is their desire to outrun the provincial prejudices of the space they live in, and they have understood that this is possible through organization. Under way of becoming legal, the “Vector” foundation has as major purposes to promote these artists from Iasi, to establish within the space of the Turkish Bath a contemporary art center and, of course, to assure the continuity of the Periferic. I believe that with these four editions the festival has served its political purpose of imposing contemporary art in a context with no tradition in the field; it remains for the manifestation to gain more quality and visibility in the future. Thus, the festival will have a good chance of becoming the “Periferic” Biennial, organized in the eastern extremity of the future united Europe.
The center of the city of Iasi was enriched lately with a new and modern building, resemblingin what the “look” and the dimensions are concerned with the complex “Sofitel-World Trade Center” in Bucharest. It will be the headquarters of an international business center and it willbe directly connected to the Iasi airport, which undergoes as well a modernization process meant to turn it into an international one.
Could this be a sign announcing the good times lying ahead of us?
Notes:
“Nous vivons une epoque formidable, le progres fait rage”, interview with Maria Lind and Robert Fleck, “d’Letzeburger Land”, Luxembourg, no. 26 / the 26th of July 1998.
An important part is played by the International Center for Contemporary Art in Bucharest (CIAC Bucharest– director Irina Cios), the Pro Helvetia Foundation in Bucharest (director Gabriela Tudor), and also by the initiatives of the artists who established their own foundations: the Contemporary Art Archive (AAC – directors Lia & Dan Perjovschi), the ARTeast Foundation in Tg. Mures (director Jozsef Bartha), the Transit Foundation in Cluj, the ETNA Foundation in Sf. Gheorghe (president Gusztav Uto), the FORMAT Foundation initiated by Alexandru Patatics in Timisoara. Mention must be also made of the three publications of contemporary art: Balkon in Cluj (director Timotei Nadasan), Artelier (editors: Magda Carneci, Ruxandra Balaci and Adela Vaetisi) and Arta (editor Adrian Guta).
The Board of Visual Arts within the Ministry of Culture has managed as a result of a  competition of curator projects to organize within the Romanian Pavilion at the 1999 Biennial in Venice a contemporary art professional exhibition (curator: Judit Angel, artists: Dan Perjovschi and the Subreal Group, director DAV: Simona Tanasescu). We must mention that the change was initiated by the critic Adrian Guta during the 1997 edition of the Biennial, when he organized for the first time an exhibition of the young contemporary artists.
It is about the exhibitions and symposiums organized by the critic Liviana Dan at the Bruckental Museum in Sibiu, the individual and group exhibitions organized by the critic Ruxandra Balaci at the National Romanian Art Museum in Bucharest, the “ZONA” Festival organized by the critic Ileana Pintilie first at the Art Museum in Timisoara and then at the Hungarian Theatre, the exhibitions organized at the Tara Crisurilor Museum in Oradea (the IntermediART Biennial), the Art Museum in Cluj and the Palace of Culture in Iasi ( the Periferic Festival).

Concept

 

BETWEEN CENTER AND PERIPHERY

Matei BejenaruArtist, curator of Periferic 4

1. The MCA, the Renaissance Society, the Center for Contemporary Photography, the Chicago Arts Institute, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Chicago Video Data Bank are the places in which you can meet contemporary art in Chicago. As for myself, an artist from the east of Europe, it was impressive to discover this density of places and events. While I was there, I found out during the discussions with artists and exhibition organizers that “the real center” of American contemporary art is divided between the East Coast (New York) and the West Coast (Los Angeles). The relation between center and periphery functions in America too, but within parameters altogether different from those I have estimated when I conceived the Periferic. But does this comparison really make any sense at all? I would say that it does, in the measure in which an understanding of the American context could help identify efficient strategies feasible in Romania as well. In what the American case is concerned, the issue consists in finding modalities through which certain local players (otherwise interesting artists) can become global players, all this taking place in the two centers mentioned above.

 

In what Romania is concerned, the main issue is the “cultural connection” to the civilized world of an isolated and poor post-communist society, facing a continuous identity crisis, insufficiently urbanized and with a non-competitive technology. The local and national specific features are related rather to the confrontation with the isolationist and conservative mentalities than to the effort to enter “the global trend” of the cultural artistic and managerial discourse. The interest in the Romanian contemporary artists is directly proportional with the interest in Romania as a whole. It seems even more difficult to accept the fact that the visibility of Romanian artists is influenced by the annual rate of inflation (as indicator of the economic performances), the level of outside investment, the quantity of IT (computers and software) in relation to the total number of inhabitants, the kilometers of highways built yearly, the number of phone stations, the quality of services, the annual number of foreign tourists visiting the country, the weight of the middle class in the Romanian society, the degree of local autonomy, the degree of corruption and of the separation of powers in the state. I made of course a subjective enumeration of objective indicators. Nevertheless, if their values will be closer to the European ones, the Romanian society will get a radiography that would resemble more those of modern countries, the international interest (not only cultural) will be higher, the number of opportunities will increase and, from our viewpoint, the medium time spent by international curators and managers in our country will no longer be reduced to the usual 24-48 hours of staying in Bucharest especially (Robert Fleck, one of the curators of the Manifesta 2 exhibition, said in an interview that in many of the periphery countries the artistic stage is extremely limited and everything takes place exclusively in the capital, where, in a coffee shop for instance, the artists meet all the time).

As I wrote with another occasion, I believe that the development of an infrastructure (institutions, galleries, publications, foundations, etc.) capable to promote contemporary art in Romania will be the natural result of the maturation (normalization) of the Romanian society and will lead both to the “synchronization” of the local artistic discourses with the international ones and to the efficient allocation of resources in a country that on medium term will remain poor. Like the institutions in Chicago I enumerated in the beginning, which are sponsored by private organizations and carry on their activities with money coming from their own funds or from those of different foundations, individuals and public financing projects, the important contemporary art events which took place in Romania during the passed years have been the result of private initiatives (foundations, organizations, etc.) 2, with the exception of the Board of Visual Arts within the Ministry of Culture which added a new dimension3 to the Romanian participation to the Biennial in Venice. Also, some art museums in Romania have “accepted” to house contemporary art exhibitions, without financial involvement or significant logistics.
As any change from a reference system to another supposes a transitory order in which the system’s state parameters experience uncontrollable oscillations of great amplitudes, the transition of the Romanian society from a certain economic and political order to another is a long and syncopated phenomenon, influenced by the initial reference level and by the way in which the process started (the cultural field is a delicate seismograph recording these changes). I believe that the second half of the ’90 has led to a maturation of the artistic and managerial discourses in the area of contemporary art and, if artists, curators and organizers will lucidly and coherently carry on their projects, we will be able to achieve also the “up-grade” concerning the international interest in the Romanian context.


2. Travelling by the TAROM Iasi-Bucharest flight one will be surprised to see that the plane first heads north to stop in Suceava. The principle of economic profitableness indicates us coldly that the number of passengers travelling by plane from Iasi to Bucharest is too small to assure a direct flight. But, we ask ourselves, who could be the potential passengers? Due to the high price of the ticket, they are, first of all, the businessmen, because we can not talk about a constant flux of foreign tourists. The absence of businessmen travelling to (from) Iasi makes me think that the local economic climate is not a favorable one either, which contributes essentially to the isolation of the city, isolation which affects also the cultural area. Where the economy is prosperous, the people are dynamic, they coordinate their actions following rational projects, they change and accept ideas which they do not always agree with, they circulate, cultivate the differences, build a civil society capable of protecting their interests, produce and consume symbolical (cultural) goods which reflect an open world based on freedom and individualism.

The isolation and the poor economic development of the city of Iasi influenced also the cultural environment, dominated by traditionalism and a damaging addiction to the past. The renewal to which we have been assisting during these last few years was not achieved within the monumental cultural institutions built up a century ago, but through the efforts of young intellectuals with European views who, although lacking economic or political power and not holding key positions in the system, have turned the cultural life in a more dynamic one and won the media confrontation with the conservatives. In this sense, the most important local daily newspaper (“Monitorul” – now with a national network) and the most prestigious cultural journal (“Timpul”) have housed in their pages the debates initiated by young writers and artists from Iasi.

The “Periferic” festival and the several exhibitions organized in Iasi during the past years have outlined a group of young visual artists interested in making and thinking contemporary art. Though their preoccupations may be different (from personal mythologies to social and political criticism), the thing that joins them is their desire to outrun the provincial prejudices of the space they live in, and they have understood that this is possible through organization. Under way of becoming legal, the “Vector” foundation has as major purposes to promote these artists from Iasi, to establish within the space of the Turkish Bath a contemporary art center and, of course, to assure the continuity of the Periferic. I believe that with these four editions the festival has served its political purpose of imposing contemporary art in a context with no tradition in the field; it remains for the manifestation to gain more quality and visibility in the future. Thus, the festival will have a good chance of becoming the “Periferic” Biennial, organized in the eastern extremity of the future united Europe.

The center of the city of Iasi was enriched lately with a new and modern building, resemblingin what the “look” and the dimensions are concerned with the complex “Sofitel-World Trade Center” in Bucharest. It will be the headquarters of an international business center and it willbe directly connected to the Iasi airport, which undergoes as well a modernization process meant to turn it into an international one.        

Could this be a sign announcing the good times lying ahead of us?

 

Notes:

  1. “Nous vivons une epoque formidable, le progreas fait rage”, interview with Maria Lind and Robert Fleck, “d’Letzeburger Land”, Luxembourg, no. 26 / the 26th of July 1998.
  2. An important part is played by the International Center for Contemporary Art in Bucharest (CIAC Bucharest– director Irina Cios), the Pro Helvetia Foundation in Bucharest (director Gabriela Tudor), and also by the initiatives of the artists who established their own foundations: the Contemporary Art Archive (AAC – directors Lia & Dan Perjovschi), the ARTeast Foundation in Tg. Mures (director Jozsef Bartha), the Transit Foundation in Cluj, the ETNA Foundation in Sf. Gheorghe (president Gusztav Uto), the FORMAT Foundation initiated by Alexandru Patatics in Timisoara. Mention must be also made of the three publications of contemporary art: Balkon in Cluj (director Timotei Nadasan), Artelier (editors: Magda Carneci, Ruxandra Balaci and Adela Vaetisi) and Arta (editor Adrian Guta).
  3. The Board of Visual Arts within the Ministry of Culture has managed as a result of a  competition of curator projects to organize within the Romanian Pavilion at the 1999 Biennial in Venice a contemporary art professional exhibition (curator: Judit Angel, artists: Dan Perjovschi and the Subreal Group, director DAV: Simona Tanasescu). We must mention that the change was initiated by the critic Adrian Guta during the 1997 edition of the Biennial, when he organized for the first time an exhibition of the young contemporary artists.
  4. It is about the exhibitions and symposiums organized by the critic Liviana Dan at the Bruckental Museum in Sibiu, the individual and group exhibitions organized by the critic Ruxandra Balaci at the National Romanian Art Museum in Bucharest, the “ZONA” Festival organized by the critic Ileana Pintilie first at the Art Museum in Timisoara and then at the Hungarian Theatre, the exhibitions organized at the Tara Crisurilor Museum in Oradea (the IntermediART Biennial), the Art Museum in Cluj and the Palace of Culture in Iasi ( the Periferic Festival).

 

 

Organizer

International center for Contemporary art Bucharest

 

Co-organizers

Arts Council of Switzerland – Pro Helvetia

Romanian Ministry of Culture

French Cultural Center of Iasi

Czech Center Bucharest

DNT Iasi

National Museum “Moldova” Iasi

Municipality of Iasi

 

 

Artists

“ Wet-Dry”

The Turkish Bath of Iasi

Curator: Matei Bejenaru

Artists:

Agatha Zobrist & Theres Waeckerlin (CH)
Xavier Lopez Quintana (S)
Dan Acostioaei (RO)
Roddy Hunter (UK)
Helen McBride (UK)
Yuri Leiderman (RUS)
Lynn Hassan (USA)
Simona Tanasescu (RO)
Rostopasca Group (RO)
Karen Kipphoff (RO)
Frantisek Kowolowski (CZ)
Dana Dirvariu & Adina Tofan (RO)
Dan Jauca (RO)
Mihai Burlacu (RO)
Mircea Cantor (RO)
Lisa Jane Galloway (UK)
Dan Zbarcea (RO)
Mihai Voicu (RO)

“Personal Mappings”
The Palace of Culture of Iasi
Curator: Matei Bejenaru

Artisti / Artists:

Teodor Graur (RO)
Alexandru Patatics (RO)
Peter Hecker (HU)
Cristian Alexa (USA)
Calin Man (RO)
Gabor Gerhes (HU)
Dan Mihaltianu (RO)
Florin Grigoras (RO)

“Girls Show”
Female artists from Czech Republic
The Public Bath of Iasi
Curator: Radek Vana (CZ)

Artiste / Artists
Veronika Bromova
Ivana Lomova
Iveta Ducakova
Milena Dopitova
Nathalie Prevot
Michaela Thelenova
Josefina Slezakova
Erika Bornova
Jitka Geringova

Performance sessions
French Cultural Center

Artisti / Artists:
Julie Bacon (UK)
Bogdan Teodorescu (RO)
Gusztav Uto & Eva Vajda (RO)
Sebastian Branzei (RO)
Cosmin Paulescu (RO)
Bogdan Focseneanu & Dragos Alexandrescu (RO)
John Lamb (UK)
Felix Aftene (RO)
Cezar Lazarescu (RO)
Companie Denis Tricot (FR)
Anton Lederer & Margerethe Makovec (A)