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.