The videos below are screened at the London Festival of Europe, at the opening lecture delivered by philosopher Zygmunt Bauman on Monday 19 March and at the panel debate
Looking East: Contemporary Art from Eastern Europe on Tuesday 20 March.
Monday 19 March
Lecture Theatre, 6.30pm
• La révolution dans le boudoir by Dan Mihaltianu
1999, 22’30”
Live audio recordings from the Romanian radio and television during the December 1989 events overlapped with images of a normal life (morning ritual of a man preparing himself for a new day) in an attempt to understand the unaccountable.
1999, ten years later, everything (the people, the city, the society) seems to turn normal but the clue of what really happened in those days is still missing. What is left is just a scenario of an absurd theatre play.
The audio track merges in 22 min. the five days between the beginning of the protests and the execution of Ceausescu. 22 is a symbol for 22nd of December, the day when the revolution started in Bucharest. 22 min is also the real time for someone to prepare himself for a new day .
Dan Mihaltianu (b.1954, Bucharest) deals with process-oriented projects involving installation, photography, film and video: Personal History / Official History (1980-1993),
Liquid Matter (1993-2006), and Divided ( 2004-2007).
Seminar Rooms 1 & 2, 7pm
•
Dacia 1300 by Stefan Constantinescu & Julio Soto
2003, 3’15
One of the most important symbols of communist Romania under Ceausescu was Dacia
1300 , a car which everyone wished to own, a symbol of the working class' achievement and victory towards the future.
The car manufacturer “Auto Pitesti” was built in 1968, the year Constantinescu was born and the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia
. “The car was truly wonderful, says the artist; year after year I visited the auto-showroom to see the last colours and improvements. For me, as a child in communist Romania with no access to Western culture and technology, it was a wa y to dream and escape”.
1 Belgrave Square, SW1X 8PH, London
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Paradoxically, Dacia 1300 is still produced with no major alterations in Romania today and for many of the “ex-es” who are yet in power it preserves the same symbolic weight. The car is the Renault 12 model.
The film contains old archival footage and propaganda material. The complete version
(62min) adds thirteen interviews with old neighbours from the block where Constantinescu family lived (Colentina area, Bucharest).
Stefan Constantinescu (born 1968, Bucharest) studied at the Art University in Bucharest and at the Royal Art Academy of Stockholm, where he received his MFA in 1997. His projects include: The Archive of Pain (2000), Dacia 1300 - My Generation (2003) and El
Pasaje (2005), presented in several individual and group exhibitions in Germany, Italy,
Switzerland, Sweden and Romania.
• Five Times Bucharest by Olivia Mihaltianu
2007, 7’
Five Times Bucharest presents the life and destiny of five characters in close relationship with the development and history of their hometown. The characters of the film are a
‘nouveau riche’ girl, an engineer, a retired woman, a young politician and a mature intellectual who are speaking about memory, identity and ways of connecting individual and collective forms of action and thought within a society undergoing confusing political and economic transition.
Olivia Mihaltianu (b.1981, Bucharest) studied at the University of Fine Arts in Bucharest.
She participated in several group shows such as Her Position In Transition (Vienna, 2006), formate/moving patterns (Kunsthalle, Exnergasse,Vienna, 2004) and the Bucharest
International Film Festival (2004).
• Crossroad by Dan Acostioaei
2005, 2’32”
Crossroad captures the gesture of crossing oneself when passing a church. The gesture is common to a large variety of social and cultural backgrounds and of different ages in the artist’s hometown Iasi, Romania. The film speaks about the persistence of the mystic spirit and traditional values in Romanian society despite of its continuous efforts for mo dernization. The feverish religious ‘revival’ is, in fact, the late response of people to communist suppression and censorship.
• Bahlui by Night by Dan Acostioaei & Dragos Alexandrescu
2004, 12’40”
Bahlui is the only river passing through Iasi, Romania's former 'cradle' of traditional culture.
However, the city is also lags behind in economic development, even after the European integration. The video investigates ironically the journey of the river from the moment it enters the city to the instant it gets out of the urban area. The night frames create a metaphysical atmosphere, transforming the grey reality one perceives daytime into an almost unreal fairy world. The video is a splendid narrative of failure.
1 Belgrave Square, SW1X 8PH, London
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• Reconstructionscapes by Dan Acostioaei
2005 , 14’50”
The video is a collection of images with construction sites around Iasi area, exploring the unseen connections between power, economy and identity in present-day Romania, where the collapse of the communist utopia paved the way for the emergence of capitalism.
Recent economic development has transformed the grey and oppressive urban landscape into a mixture of sharp and absurd contrasts, with existing architectures mushrooming into post-modern structures and luxurious villas or casinos looming behind ridiculous kiosks.
Dan Acostioaei (b.1974, Iasi) studied at the University of Fine Arts in Iasi, Romania. He had residencies at Arts Link, Cleveland (2006), Kulturkontakt Vienna (2004) and Rotor,
Graz (2002). Selected Group Exhibitions: Brief Encounters , 11th Bristol International Short
Film Festival, UK (2005), Irreducible , Bronx Museum, New York & CCA Wattis Institute for
Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2005), Cover Story , Display Gallery, Prague (2005).
• Les énfants de Ceausescu et George Soros by Dan Mihaltianu
2004 - 2007, 16’
A survey of the Romanian art scene following people, events and places, through the changes occurred in the long way from the closed society of the Ceausescu regime, through the extended and still on-going period of transition towards the open society of the post communist era.
Dan Mihaltianu (b.1954, Bucharest) has an artistic position concerned with processoriented projects involving installation, photography, film and video: Personal History /
Official History (1980-1993), Liquid Matter (1993-2006), Divided ( 2004-2007).
• Choose… by Ciprian Muresan
2005, 45”
A concise reflection on globalization, capital and consumerism in a puzzling world.
However heroic, the effort to choose at least a recognisable reality from the infinity offered in supermarkets or on TV fails better and better every day. And what can be more heroic than an 11-year-old boy choosing spontaneously between two chocolaty or brownish liquids called Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola?
• 3D Rubliov by Ciprian Muresan
2004, 4’49”
The video reproduces in 3D animation several scenes from Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rubliov .
Using the unlimited possibilities of 3D animation to replicate in detail an original that dealt with robust 2D icons, the artist does not simply aim to explore the relation between copy and original, but rather to “mark the temporal distance between the two as the space of representation itself”, as curator Mihnea Mircan said.
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• Un chien andalou by Ciprian Muresan
2004, 51”
Playing with cultural memory, the video reflects on accumulation and ruin of knowledge.
Shrek slashes the eye of his beloved companion, in the same way and sequence of scenes as seen in Un chien andalou by Bunuel and Dali. When a 21 st century animated character mimics candidly things seen in a surrealist film 80 years older than him, the world has problems in establishing identities and using rationally old knowledge and models.
Ciprian Muresan (b. 1977, Cluj) graduated the University of Art and Design in Cluj.
Selected solo exhibitions: Prometeo Gallery, Milan (2006) and Studio Protokoll, Cluj
(2004). Selected group exhibitions: Cluj Connection , Haunch of Venison, Zurich (2006),
Periferic 7 Biennial, Iasi (2006), Motion Parade , Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna (2005).
• Paris Project – performance and video by Sebastian Moldovan
20052006, 7’21”
The Paris Project is a performance which the artist did in Bucharest carrying the signage
Paris throughout the old part of the city. Once known as Little Paris, Bucharest was partly destroyed by the misguided architectural ambitions of Ceausescu. Eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings were torn down in favour of unattractive and supposedly functional housing. As it stands now, if you ask a passer-by to direct you to the historic centre of the city, they do not know what you're talking about. By evoking a missing reality,
Moldovan creates a situation for people to engage in and to explore notions of history, nostalgia and transience. If Little Paris is no longer in place, it could be at least a reviving state of mind.
Sebastian Moldovan (b.1982, Baia Mare) studied at the University of Art and Design in
Cluj (Romania) and at L’École Regionale des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (France). Selected group exhibitions: Comfortably Numb , Kultur Kontakt, Vienna (2006), Dada East? The
Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire , Cabaret Voltaire, Zűrich (2006 – 07), Chaos: The Age of
Confusion , Bucharest Biennale 2 (2006).
1 Belgrave Square, SW1X 8PH, London
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Tuesday 20 March
Lecture Theatre, 2.30pm
• Off the Map. In Bucharest by Ioana Marinescu & Robert Fearns
2006, 25’
In March 1984, demolition started in Bucharest on an unprecedented scale to make place for the socalled ‘People’s Palace’ and the ‘Victory of Socialism Boulevard’, dictated by
Ceausescu. Thousands of houses and many historical monuments were demolished or moved from their original locations, and one of the most picturesque quarters of
Bucharest, the Uranus hill, was transformed into a desolate wasteland. Most of the inhabitants were moved to the edge of the city in newly built and often unfinished blocks of flats. The building project obliterated the identity of the community, its sense of belonging and continuity.
The film by Ioana Marinescu and Robert Fearns is a documentary that reconstructs, mentally and visually, the hidden history and memories of the erased part of the city and its inhabitants.Their verbal recollections in interviews alternate with the voice of the narrator, while the camera moves from present to past revealing unique archival images.The film puts an emphasis on the trauma of the displaced community and its lost, intimate place.
Ioana Marinescu (b. 1973, Bucharest) studied at the Institute of Architecture in Bucharest and at RIBA, University of North London, UK. Her most recent exhibitions include: Gas
Pipes, AA School of Architecture, London (2006) and Off the Map. In Bucharest , Young
Artists Biennial 2, Bucharest (2006).
Robert Fearns (b. 1954, UK) is a senior lecturer in Fine Art Media at the Bath Spa
University.
Lecture Theatre, 6.00pm
• The Trial by Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor
2004 - 2005, 37’24”
A unique film about a text that seems to be a theatrical performance rather than the transcript of Ceausescu’s trial in December 1989, when every Romanian was ‘glued’ to the
TV set to witness the dictator ’s capture, trial and death. The video alludes also to the TV journals from communist period, presenting every evening the new blocks of flats built by the regime. Filmed from the same Dacia 1300 national car, the film shows how nothing actually changed with these blocks in the last 15 years.
Mona Vatamanu ( b.1968, Constanta) & Florin Tudor (b.1974, Geneva) work together since 2000. Selected exhibitions: Liquid Matter, Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien, Berlin
(2006), Art-chitecture of Change , Isola Art Centre, Milano, and The Trial. Private
Investigations , Stadtturm Galerie, Innsbruck / solo (2005).
1 Belgrave Square, SW1X 8PH, London
T 0207 752 0134; F 0207 235 0383; M 07919 022 796; E office@icr-london.co.uk
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