What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things. Starting from this truth it is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface. Constantin Brâncuși, in Brummer Gallery catalog, New York 1926
The history of visual arts unfolds by the artworks of past times and the actual artistic practice. Artworks are condensed documents of thought, reason and of emotional relation to reality and social surrounding. Art history translates such documents into language and theory against the background of additional historic facts. Since the last decade Western art history is getting rewritten and reformulated. The one-sided narrative of art history based on the Western European and North American allegedly logical development is getting completed and modified by many stories about parallel developments based on the multiplicity of cultural spheres on our planet.
As an important element in the new and global perspective on parallel cultural narratives, also the Eastern part of Europe is getting re-discovered and re-evaluated in its own speed of development, logical relations, cultural references and differences, especially since the fall of the Iron Curtain.“We will focus the 1st Timișoara Art Encounters on artists, who belong in some way to Romanian culture and are having some of their roots in these spheres by reason of birth, language or artistic references. Artists, who are living and working in Romania and abroad. We will employ an archaeological point of view. Looking from outside and searching for the essential elements, also by attempting to make this immanent content visible. Curating means, defining the empty space in an exhibition, the space in between the artworks, the passage from one work to another. This our task, to write content into the void, which can be experienced by the visitor.
Appearance & Essence are the curatorial giudeline for this field study of the Romanian art scene. But we are not looking for some enigmatical national identity, we are looking for the cultural difference, for the individual nuances in the global discourse.”The 1st Timișoara Art Encounters is focussed in such a way on a particular chapter in the multi-layered narrative of contemporary art, the Romanian narrative. The 1st Encounters will look at Romanian art from the 1960ies up to now and will trace back some of the inherent storylines.
Nathalie Hoyos / Rainald Schumacher
Nathalie Hoyos experiences include curatorial work at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn and the Belvedere in Vienna, Austria, advising in cultural politics and collection strategies.
Rainald Schumacher was responsible as chief curator and director for the Goetz Collection in Munich, Germany, and also as curator for contemporary art at the Art and Exhibition Hall. He has been director of Esther Schipper Gallery, Berlin, and at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York. He worked as studio manager for Gerhard Richter in Cologne, Germany.
Timișoara, Art Encounters Venues [more…]
The Art Encounters Foundation is an independent cultural institution, which was set up in 2015 by Ovidiu Șandor, art collector actively involved in the contemporary art scene of Romania, member of The Russian and Eastern European Art Acquisitions Committee of the Tate Modern Museum, London.
