Over 110 museums are now disappearing because the previously nationalised buildings are given back to their owners. Local governments, which have the right to buy them back, are not interested or have no funding. Thus, essential urban public places vanish, and sometimes incredible collections will completely get out of sight. A recent exhibition and installation at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant was meant to raise awareness about this scandalous development.
ASB, organized by “Art Society Cultural Center” is an annual art exhibition focusing on the developments of contemporary art, where Romanian or international contemporary art galleries and museums are invited to showcase the new directions in Romanian contemporary art and museums’ collections exhibitions. In 2016 Art Safari took place at Dacia-România Palace, 18-20 Lipscani St. 25.000 visitors made Bucharest the Eastern European Capital of Contemporary Art – a city of Western and Eastern European contrasts – for ten days in May 2016. A certification of the increasing interest of the larger Romanian audience in international cultural events. The echoes of 2014 and 2015 editions were triggers for important international professionals and collectors. In 2016, amongst the international museums and institutions that visited Art Safari in a prospect of the Romanian contemporary art market were Tate Modern, Beelden aan Zee Museum, Bavarian Parliament Culture Committee, European Curatorium of Bucharest candidacy for European Cultural Capital 2021 title, and also professionals from art museums in Strasbourg, Stockholm, Warsaw, Vienna, Haifa, Paris, Johannesburg, The Hague, etc.
A territorial sketch. Beyond the city and beyond cliches.
We propose a study which concentrates solely on the rural areas of Romania and is devised from a double perspective –focusing on architecture as well as on community.
On the whole, there are two kinds of materials:
– texts which are primarily theoretical, describing phenomena in a synthetic manner. Sometimes these texts introduce chapters, other times they are independent essays.
– examples of good practice, a sort of files on good things. Sometimes they concern proper projects of new restoration, other times they tell about complex programmes, or simply successful stories. The actors are the locals (either old ones or emigrants to the countryside), architects, urban planners, all kinds of activists and volunteers, investors and many others.
We propose a study which concentrates solely on the rural areas of Romania and is devised from a double perspective –focusing on architecture as well as on community.
On the whole, there are two kinds of materials:
– texts which are primarily theoretical, describing phenomena in a synthetic manner. Sometimes these texts introduce chapters, other times they are independent essays.
– examples of good practice, a sort of files on good things. Sometimes they concern proper projects of new restoration, other times they tell about complex programmes, or simply successful stories. The actors are the locals (either old ones or emigrants to the countryside), architects, urban planners, all kinds of activists and volunteers, investors and many others.
An exhibition that opens simultaneously in Bucharest (7pm local time), Amsterdam, Stockholm and Bergen (6pm local time).
Connected tells stories of this new and intelligent society from four different cities, overlapping experiences and finding out common features – a new social contract between European citizen. In Amsterdam, a community builds itself a floating neighborhood, regenerating a polluted and abandoned part of the city in the process. “Stockholm on the move” is an example of democratic planning, that also proves profitable. From Bergen we hear about edible cities or parks for over 60 communities. Romania is represented by organizations that start from almost nothing but innovate through hi-tech bricolage, build-up public space, educate future urban citizens, save a built heritage, build-up art, communities and international networks.
