Nucleu 0006
Coordinated by Gabriela Mateescu, May 2018
The “Nucleu 0006” project consisted of 3 exhibitions: 2 solo shows and one group exhibition
Episode 1: Home Conversations. Artist: Vangjush Vellahu
Episode 2: Part time artist or forever in an internship. Artists: Lia Bira, doamna Dia, Ioana Mitrea, Oana Stanciu
Episode 3: A Young Engineer Killed Herself for an Artist Artist: Roberta Curcă
Alert Studio, Bucharest
Episode 1: Home Conversations, 2018
Artist: Vangjush Vellahu
With former employees of Impuls Factory Dilijan, Armenia
34 min 10 sec, 9 channel video installation, Video HD, color, sound
These intervews with former employees of Impuls factory evoke the spontaneous character of encounters that can emerge when people from different generations, cultures, and economic systems talk face to face. When we are confronted with something which is not ours, we can only understand it by living out of sync with our personal time. At this intersection, a dialogue that emerges transmits the wisdom and memories of the past. In an unfamiliar location, face to face conversation offers the possibility of catching the missing details of official narratives. These interviews are the beginnings of an oral archive – a living archive – in which the past is transmitted only through personal experience.
Impuls is one of many telecommunication factories constructed in the USSR. These interviews provide specific information about the factory and its social substance that reached far beyond the production site. It generated urban culture and the social life of Dilijan. After the fall of Soviet Union and the declaration of independence of Armenia in 1991, Dilijan was disconnected and the city experienced extreme social changes and difficulties in order to adapt to the new political system.
Episode 2: Part Time Job or Forever in an Internship
Artists: Lia Bira, doamna Dia, Ioana Mitrea and Oana Stanciu
The project challenges the notion of the utility of artists and how their un(der)paid labor is perceived as not having any value unless validated by the higher institutions of art, and even when it has any value, it will be easily traded for fame and “VISIBILITY”.
The artists use their training to respond to the financial pressures that have arisen over the years. They are working and dedicating their time to whatever pays the bills, and then, on weekends or when some free time comes up, they isolate themselves from the pressures of external authority and work with the pure form that is sometimes traded for financial benefits. The fluctuation of the art market, the disappearance of aesthetic attitudes in art, the development of technologies, and the emergence of the Internet made the production of visual content exceed its consumption.
This project is a follow-up to the initial intentions of the group Nucleu 0000, which is to create a link between the overwhelming number of artists enrolled in higher art education or who are interested in the art field but lack the opportunities after graduation to exhibit their work or continue as artists.
On the other hand, the artists that choose to dedicate themselves to art are in a constant fight for survival in this ever-profit-driven environment that the art market has become. The artists start working in the art field and are forever registered in a continuum internship, where they need to demonstrate their value by constantly working for free in the name of visibility, fame, or promotion.
Episode 3: A Young Engineer Killed Herself for an Artist
Artist: Roberta Curcă
“Roberta is working with the randomness of found forms and patterns that she encounters every day, which are then archived in her very own system that is designated to occupy as little space as possible while preserving as much substance as it can. Roberta gathers information from plain textiles, different materialities of objects, plastic, rock, glass, pieces of wall plaster, and texts that are then stored, synthesized, and rearranged to create new personal structures. She managed to centralize these, reinterpreting them over and over through simple exercises like drawing the same line for over 100 days to submit herself to failure. The simplicity of her works is a result of forever gathering and throwing away the unnecessary. This perpetual game of collecting and discharging creates abstract tales in the numerous files where all these are deposited. Welcome to her office.” Gabriela Mateescu
“A few years ago, I started going with the flow. I developed an acute awareness that would be triggered at any time and that I would take a little too seriously. Maybe it was the frequent use of a camera phone that developed this awareness, or maybe it was this idea of capturing anything that resonated in order to review it later; nevertheless, I started adding to my collection of pictures, drawings, artworks, and screenshots from movies. The name of the exhibition is from one of such screenshots. Teresita Fernandez wrote in her 2013 commencement address that for “some inexplicable reason, we seem to believe most strongly not in the actual formal lessons, but rather in those details that get into our heads without our knowing exactly how they got there. Those pivotal lessons in our lives continue to work on us in subtle, subterranean ways.” I would add to this that sometimes we also believe strongly in details that get into our heads, with us knowing exactly how they got there but not knowing exactly why they got there. For the past few years, I have dived into unfamiliar terrain, expanding my horizons and my learning capacity, which has helped me navigate a bit better through this current expanded field of art (or so I think). I will not assume I know something (because there is so much to learn), nor am I letting myself be carried by ideas or trends; I go with a flow, my flow, as much as a flow can be your own.“ Roberta Curcă