The Ratiu Foundation / Romanian Cultural Centre in London would like to invite you to the exhibition

CURATORS’ SERIES #3
HISTORY OF ART, THE

a project curated by
MIHNEA MIRCAN

for
THE DAVID ROBERTS ART FOUNDATION

7 May to 10 July 2010, David Roberts Art Foundation, 111 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 6RY; www.davidrobertsartfoundation.com
Opening times: Tuesday to Friday 10.00 – 18.00; Saturday 11.00 – 16.00. Nearest tube: Oxford Circus / Great Portland Street. Opening reception: 6 May 2010, from 18.30.

Mihnea Mircan is the third guest curator in the Curators’ Series invited by The David Roberts Art Foundation. Mircan’s group exhibition ‘History of Art, the’, looks at how contemporary artists navigate art history, and groups works that lay out the rules of their future interpretation or negotiate their inscription in an art history to come.

The exhibition brings together practices that explore the symbolic transactions, institutional protocols and historiographic disconnections between contemporary art and the discourse of art history. The works in the exhibition range from sculpture and installation to photography and video, and include new pieces especially commissioned by the David Roberts Art Foundation. The exhibition features works by Agency, Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Pavel Buchler, Etienne Chambaud, Luc Deleu, Alison Gerber, Hilario Isola and Matteo Norzi, Ian Law, Alon Levin, Jill Magid, Benoit Maire, Navid Nuur, Jonas Staal and Mladen Stilinovic.

The curator invites us to ask the questions: How will contemporary art works be recuperated, as indispensable to an understanding of our present artistic moment? How can they ensure their own relevance to art history and question its capacity to imagine the future? From the point of view of what they will mean, how and to whom, can works of art administrate themselves – and therefore become quasi-institutions?

Romanian born Mihnea Mircan (b. 1976) curated the exhibition ‘Sublime Objects’ and the ‘Under Destruction’ series of interventions at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest, Romania, as well as mid-career surveys of artists such as Jaan Toomik and Sean Snyder. He was the curator of ‘Low-Budget Monuments’, the Romanian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennial (2007). His latest project is the exhibition ‘Since we last spoke about monuments’ at Stroom Den Haag. He contributes regularly to international publications, having recently written for monographs of Plamen Dejanoff, Mircea Cantor and Deimantas Narkevicius. ‘History of Art, the’ is his first exhibition in London.

Mihnea Mircan is editing a publication, titled ‘The Impresent’, to accompany the exhibition, sponsored by Abake.

The exhibition is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam, and the Ratiu Foundation. The David Roberts Art Foundation would also like to thank the Romanian Cultural Institute in London for their support and assistance. The David Roberts Art Foundation is proudly supported by the Edinburgh House Estates group of companies.

Image above: Pavel Buchler, Bulgarian Group Portrait, 1999-2010. Courtesy of the artist.

HISTORY OF ART, THE

CURATORS’ SERIES #3

07.05.2010 – 10.07.2010
Opening reception: 06.05.2010, from 6.30pm

Mihnea Mircan is the third guest curator invited by The David Roberts Art Foundation for the Curators’ Series. His group exhibition History of Art, The, presents works that lay out the rules of their future interpretation or negotiate their inscription in an art history to come.

The exhibition brings together practices that explore the symbolic transactions, institutional protocols and historiographic disconnections between contemporary art and the discourse of art history. The exhibition features works and new commissions by Agency, Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Pavel Büchler, Etienne Chambaud, Luc Deleu, Alison Gerber, Hilario Isola and Matteo Norzi, Ian Law, Alon Levin, Jill Magid, Benoit Maire, Navid Nuur, Jonas Staal and Mladen Stilinovic.

Mihnea Mircan is editing a publication, The Impresent, to accompany the exhibition. It is based on Nina Beier and Marie Lund’s The Imprint and is designed and sponsored by Åbäke.

Among other projects, Mihnea Mircan (b. 1976) curated Low-Budget Monuments, the Romanian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennial, Sublime Objects at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, and Since we last spoke about monuments at Stroom Den Haag. History of Art, The is his first curatorial proposal in London.

The exhibition is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam and the Ratiu Foundation.  The Foundation would also like to thank the Romanian Cultural Institute in London for their support and assistance.
The David Roberts Art Foundation: exhibiting, collecting, sharing. A platform dedicated to critical dialogues and experiments, programmed by Vincent Honoré. The David Roberts Art Foundation Limited is a registered charity in England and Wales (No.1119738) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (No. 6051439) at 25 Gosfield Street, London, W1W 6HQ. It is proudly supported by the Edinburgh House Estates group of companies.
David Roberts Art Foundation Fitzrovia
111 Great Titchfield Street
London W1W 6RY
www.davidrobertsart foundation. com

Opening times:
Tuesday to Friday 10am – 6pm
Saturday 11am – 4pm
(Nearest tube: Oxford Circus/GreatPortlan d Street)

More than 150 works by 29 artists coming from 18 countries, from Slovenia to Russia , on display in Modena (Italy) from 13^th December 2009 to 14^th March 2010

The Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena is proud to announce the leading event among the exhibitions promoted by the Fondazione Fotografia in 2009-2010: History, Memory, Identity: contemporary photography from Eastern Europe, a rich and thorough exhibition dedicated to the protagonists of Eastern Europe art scene. As in the title, History, Memory and Identity are the main themes of this major exhibition, real “open questions” for many eastern European citizens who – after the fall of the Berlin wall on 9^th November 1989, faced a radical change during their history and, as a consequence, find it difficult to give themselves a new identity.

The exhibition presents 29 artists coming from 18 different countries, among which the Russian Federation, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia e Croatia,many of whom are exhibiting for the first time in Italy. More than 150 works will be on display, not only photographs but also movies and video installations. Julius Koller, Artur Zmijewski, Adrian Paci, Milica Tomic, the IRWIN group, Mladen Stilinovic, Maja Bajevic, Roman Ondak, Calin Dan, Iosif Kiraly, are famous international artists, while others, such as Fikret Atay, Andreas Fogarasi,Banu Cennetoglu are younger but already known on the international art circuit. Among the emerging talents: Anetta Mona-Chisa & Lucia Tkacova, Gintaras Didziapetris, Alexandra Croitoru.

There are many different ways of looking at the works on display, as many are the opportunities offered to reflect on Eastern as well as Western contemporary reality: if the new pop heroine, protagonist of the series ROM_ by Alexandra Croitoru, with her tricolour balaclava, succeeds in making fun of Rumanian nationalism and international racism at the same time, the photograph Centro di Permanenza Contemporanea, by Adrian Paci, opens a window on illegal immigration, a reality that in Italy is a strongly debated issue.

Artists like Maja Bajevic, with the video How do you want to be governed? or Artur Zmijewski, with the detention experiment documented in the video Reconstruction, ask questions concerning any human being, while other artists concentrate on specific local aspects which, through art, acquire universal value. This is the case of the video installation XY Ungelöst by Milica Tomic which, by reconstructing a ethnic homicide occurred in 1989, reminds us of the importance of collective responsibility, or of the video by Renata Poljak, in which Croatian unauthorized buildings mirror the arrogance and violence of a mentality more and more widespread in contemporary society.

The survey offers various occasions for reflecting on the past and on its influence on contemporary reality: in the works by Mladen Stilinovic(Sales of Dictatorship and Artist At Work), irony becomes the key to demystify past and present ideologies, while the images showing a concentration camp built with LEGO bricks, by the Polish artist Zbigniew Libera, are a warning against any form of human horror, proposing at the same time a reflection on the education of future generations.

History, Memory, Identity will be held in the venue of Sant’Agostino hospital from 13^th December 2009 to 14th March 2010, and will present to the public the second series of acquisitions of the international collection of contemporary photography, movies and artist videos  promoted by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena . The exhibition, curated by Filippo Maggia , is a follow up to the show Asian Dub Photography, which presented, last winter, the first section of the collection dedicated to the Far East , including, among others, works byNobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Kimsooja and Rirkrit Tiravanija. 

The list of the 29 selected artists includes: Marika Asatiani (Georgia), Fikret Atay (Turkey), Maja Bajevic (Bosnia), Banu Cennetoglu(Turkey), Alexandra Croitoru (Romania), Calin Dan (Romania), Gintaras Didziapetris (Lithuania), Andreas Fogarasi (Hungary), Jitka Hanzlova (Czech Republic), Swetlana Heger (Czech Republic), IRWIN (Slovenia), Anastasia Khoroshilova (Russia), Iosif Kiraly (Romania),Julius Koller (Slovakia), Zbigniew Libera (Poland), Anetta Mona-Chisa & Lucia Tkacova (Romania e Slovakia), Ivan Moudov (Bulgaria),Oliver Musovik (Macedonia), Anna Niesterowicz (Poland), Roman Ondak (Slovakia), Adrian Paci (Albania), Aleksander Petlura (Ukraine),Renata Poljak (Croatia), Konrad Pustola (Poland), Karolina Raczynska (Poland), Ene-Liis Sempre (Estonia), Mladen Stilinovic (Serbia),Milica Tomic (Serbia), Artur Zmijewski (Poland).

Image above: Kiaraly, Mogosoaia

HISTORY, MEMORY AND IDENTITY

Contemporary Photography

from Eastern Europe

from 13th December 2009 to 14th March 2010

Ex Ospedale Sant’Agostino

Via Emilia Centro 228, Modena – Italy

Press preview 

11th December at 11.00 a .m.

Exhibition opening

12th December at 5.30 p.m.

Opening hours Tuesday – Sunday 11 a .m.-7 p.m., Closed on Monday

Admission free

Catalogue Skira, 248 pages, colour

Texts by Filippo Maggia , Christine Frisinghelli/ Francesca Lazzarini

Further information: tel 335-1621739

info@mostre. fondazione- crmo.it