Imago Mundi

Imago Mundi. Of Margins and Other Heroes împletește pitorescul cu lumea încărcată de mituri din universul bâlciurilor românești, creând o meta-narațiune documentară bogată, concentrată pe iconografii și geografii care se nasc strict la periferii: la marginile orașelor și ale conștiinței colective, și la frontierele civilizației moderne, așa cum o cunoaștem. În acest spațiu încărcat simbolic și afectiv, artistul aduce în prim-plan o întrebare esențială: „Ce constituie centrul lumii”?

Curatoare: Ioana Mandeal

The space between things

In the exhibition "The Space Between Things," Andreea Delia Voren, the awardee of the Art Gen 24, explores the boundaries of perception, materiality, and her medium of choice. After initially having worked with painting, she transitioned to glass—a medium whose materiality amplifies the intensity between presence and absence, appearance and tangibility.

Domestic

In the idea of ​​the imprint of an aesthetic and some issues specific to these territories, but also some nuanced differences, Domestic brings together several narratives from Romania, Serbia and Croatia at the intersection of video art and short film. Discourses invite us to dive deep into the idea of domestic in contemporary societies, both as a physical and as a mental space, observing the social pressure, the dynamics of gender roles and the relationship between private and public life.

This vision focused exclusively on artistic practices in the sphere of the dynamic image makes it possible to outline a durational analytical perspective in order to launch an updated debate on the concept of domesticity regarding gender roles and identities, domestic work and motherhood, reproductive rights and responsibility, domestic violence, care, autonomy and dependence and intersectionality. The project raises awareness on aspects of women's lives that are often invisible in the public space, such as depression and anxiety, with the aim of emphasizing the importance of social integration of psycho-emotional dimensions such as vulnerability, shame, sadness and empathy.

Utopian Body

Prin lucrările sale, Claudiu Ciobanu investighează natura relației dintre rațiune, identitate și condiția umană. Cercetarea sa are cu punct de plecare studiul capacității umane de a percepe și de a analiza corpul fizic, lucru posibil atât din perspectiva propriului corp, cât și prin percepția celorlalte corpuri umane, iar percepția se manifestă nu atât prin trupul însuși, ci prin puterea minții de a-l coordona. Punctul-cheie de la care a pornit artistul este un concept aprofundat de filosoful Michel Foucault în lucrarea a cărui titlu este și cel al expoziției de față – Utopian Body.

Oh Boy, It’s a Girl! A short history of artists’ books made by female artists

With a title inspired by the iconic museum exhibition Oh boy, it’s a girl! Feminismen in der Kunst organized by Hedwig Saxenhuber and Astrid Wege at the Kunstverein München in 1994 – a milestone in the transdisciplinary approaches on this topic – the current exhibition offers a polyphonic view of the gender issue through the transgressive practice of some women artists who have worked – some occasionally, others mainly – with printed matter: Hanne Darboven, Sophie Calle, Marianne Wex, Nancy Spero, Carmen Winant, Mariken Wessels, Anne Collier, Louise Bourgeois, Annette Messager, Francesca Woodman, Justine Kurland, Katrien de Blauwer, and Mirella Bentivoglio, among others.

On the Commoning Practice of Cultivating Abundance

Åsa Sonjasdotter addresses issues of ecological justice and activist-agricultural engagement in an artistic investigation dedicated to the participatory condition of cultivating agricultural abundance. Her film, Cultivating Abundance (2022), constituted as an open manifesto dedicated to the revival of collaborative farming methods, documents the critical position of farmers in Sweden towards the legislative demands for standardization of local agricultural production that impose conditions for stabilization and uniformity of grain plantation variety. Working with local farmers, such as Hans Larsson from Fulltofta, Sweden, but also with various institutions such as the Swedish Farmers' Association, Allkorn (allkorn.se), or the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp, Åsa Sonjasdotter observes how the law works against nature by conditioning farmers to produce distinct but stable and uniform plant organisms.

WASTED

With the exponential development of the consumer market, marketing strategies and advertisements have become more and more creative and novel, to the point where they have reached the limit of aggressive to achieve their purpose. Today, marketing is so intense in the online environment that its presence is barely felt in its physical version (print), but this existence is not at all negligible.

Under Constriction

The exhibition project suggested by Radu Carnariu extends his long-standing interest in exploring the increasingly unequal distribution of the planet's wealth and resources under the impact of the extractivist-colonial economic system that globalization, in the form in which it was configured after 1990, continued to support, contributing decisively to the current planetary climate crisis.

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Fragmentați în mii de cioburi, crâmpeie de informație incertă și gratificări instante, înaintând ca prin nămol între halucinații, trepanații, conspirații, zvonuri și născociri, operațiuni sub steag fals, sfârșituri ale istoriei și realizări bruște că totul se repetă, realități schizo-paranoide pe care nici nu ni le-am fi putut imagina acum un an, o lună, o secundă, rar ne mai oprim să ne punem vreuna dintre marile întrebări care ne țineau treji nopțile — pe când lumea încă nu intrase în fierbere, criză și singularitate.

LEVANT

Carried by the passion for Catalan art, medieval miniatures and Byzantine lines, the artist Sorin Ilfoveanu stopped in the Levant. A Levant that he did not see, did not touch, but that he felt. He caught its essence in the colour of old paper and the smell of inks. The medieval intrigues found in literature and history fascinated the artist and challenged him to feel and outline the atmosphere of the Levant. He expressed it through a cursive and undulating line that tells the story of harsh, bloody, erotic or tender scenes.