National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest’s Summer Program
National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest announces its spring/summer 2016 exhibitions.
Shape of Time – Future of Nostalgia
April 20–October 9
First floor
Partner: Deutsche Telekom (DE)
Curators: Adriana Oprea, Nathalie Hoyos, Rainald Schumacher
Artists: Mihuț Boșcu-Kafchin, Yane Calovski, Stanisław Dróżdż, Ksenia Gnilitska, Igor Grubić, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Nilbar Güres, Petrit Halilaj, Vladimir Houdek, Pravdoliub Ivanov, Ali Kazma, Šejla Kamerić, Lesia Khomenko, Genti Korini, Eva Kotátková, Zofia Kulik, Vlado Martek, Radenko Milak, Sükran Moral, Ciprian Mureşan, Vlad Nancă, Ioana Nemeș, Paulina Ołowska, Roman Ondák, Dan Perjovschi, Agnieszka Polska, Tobias Putrih, Nedko Solakov, Mladen Stilinović
MNAC Coordinator: Irina Radu
Architect: Attila Kim
Shape of Time – Future of Nostalgia presents works from the Art Collection Telekom, a growing collection founded in 2010 with a focus on contemporary art from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe that places recent works alongside important historical works from previous decades. Shape of Time – Future of Nostalgia emphasises the strong narrative quality of Eastern European art, relating the history of the countries of Eastern Europe through individual and personal stories from the artists. These narratives reveal an engagement with the past and at the same time a vision of the future. All are characterised by a reflection on how history is constructed and modified. (Nathalie Hoyos, Rainald Schumacher)
DADA.RO
April 20–October 9
Second Floor
Curator: Radu Stern
Artists: Victor Brauner, B. Fundoianu, Marcel Iancu, Paul Păun, Tristan Tzara, Ion Vinea (First part until June 26)
MNAC Coordinator: Irina Radu
Architect: Attila Kim
In a famous article “Urmuz-Dada-Surrealism,” published in Contemporanul magazine (no. 71, 1926), Ion Vinea tried to establish a connection by which Demetru Demetrescu Buzău, the absurdist writer, was a forerunner of the insurrection at Cabaret Voltaire. The approach, invalidated by chronology, intended to lend an autochtonous origin to the avant-garde art and literature, turning it into an “exported,” and not “imported,” product. Nevertheless, even if Romania was not the actual birthplace of Dada, Bucharest can claim a significant place in the European avant-garde movement. A number of pieces from the Museum of Romanian Literature and the Library of the Romanian Academy but also from important private collections stand proof to it. (Radu Stern)
The House Is Looking For An Admiral To Rent
April 20–October 9
Second floor
Curator: Marie Bechetoille
Artists: Åbäke, Boris Achour, A Constructed World, Madeleine Aktypi, Karina Bisch, Antonia Carrara, Antonio Contador, Pauline Curnier Jardin, David Evrard, Seulgi Lee, Jeanne Moynot, Guillaume Pellay & Yoan Sorin, Matteo Rubbi, The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, Julien Tiberi, Valentina Traïanova, Giuliana Zefferi
MNAC Coordinator: Antigona Silvia Rogozea
Architect: Attila Kim
The exhibition The House Is Looking For An Admiral To Rent gathers contemporary artists who combine performance, sculpture, painting and poetry. Through spontaneity and chance, fictions appear and disappear, grotesque spirits who never cease to change faces and voices.
Shrinking Cities in Romania
April 20–October 9
Third Floor
Curator: Ilinca Păun Constantinescu
MNAC Coordinator: Daniela Calciu
Winner of the MNAC 2014 call for projects
The exhibition discusses the shrinkage of Romanian cities, as a widespread phenomenon. Statistical data show that most Romanian cities are facing various types of decline: socio-cultural, economic, physical, demographic. Half of the country’s cities currently have 20% fewer residents than in the 1990s. This phenomenon is insufficiently discussed, although more than a decade has passed since it was first theorized by German researchers. Shrinking Cities in Romania is a pioneering initiative to raise awareness about an acute and pervasive, yet too little discussed matter, which is presented in an attractive and interactive formulation, aiming to create a positive perspective on a negative phenomenon.
The Second Law
April 20–June 26
Fourth floor
Artists: Carmen Dobre-Hametner (RO-DE), Suk Kuhn Oh (KR)
Curated by: Diana Marincu and Anca Verona Mihuleț
Chapter III of The White Dot and The Black Cube, an exhibition project in six parts
MNAC Coordinator: Mălina Ionescu
Architect: Attila Kim
Winner of the MNAC 2014 call for projects
Conceived as a laboratory-type exhibition, The Second Law is a project constructed with high intensity, aiming to cause a little upheaval at the level of visuality, a little disorder in the way we see identity, identification and memory. To this end, it uses two distinct channels—the documentation of the practices of the Furry community as undertaken by Carmen Dobre-Hametner and the photographic re-enactment of important moments in the modern history of South Korea, as conceived by Suk Kuhn Oh.
This exhibition will be followed by the fourth chapter of the project, The Fortress of Solitude from the holy wood of eternal noise, featuring two artists—Larisa Sitar (RO) and Roman Štětina (CZ)—opening on July 7.
Konrad Smoleński: Dizzy Spells (PL)
April 20–May 29
Ground floor
Curator: Rokolectiv
Supported by: Polish Institute Bucharest and Zachęta National Gallery (Warsaw)
MNAC Coordinator: Sandra Demetrescu
Dizzy Spells is a kinetic installation with two inflatable windy men and a modified harmonium. Konrad Smoleński’s works combine punk rock aesthetics with the precision typical for minimalism. He represented Poland at the Venice Biennale in 2013 and made quite the lasting impression with his Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More installation.
