CANTEMIR Programme // Lab. Switch SRL-D exhibits GoingON at HSBI

Lab. Switch SRL-D is organizing the GoingON exhibition from 13 June to 4 July at HSBI - University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Bielfeld, Germany. The opening will take place on Wednesday 12 June, 18:00 at HSBI. The GoingON project supports the circulation of Romanian contemporary artworks in Europe, focusing on the promotion of new generations of visual artists working with the photographic medium. By facilitating cultural partnerships between organizations in Romania and Germany, the project encourages the development of foreign audiences for Romanian contemporary creation, thus promoting closer ties and deeper mutual understanding.

The curatorial concept, by Michele Bressan, is:

This text began with a problem. Before starting the actual writing, I mentally organized a series of thoughts and directions to be resumed within the text, all things I somehow already processed along with the selection of works and participants for this exhibition. Then, I realized that among the first things to address, if not the first, would be the translation for the project's title. One of the solutions that Google Translate suggested to me was "tot înainte," (all ahead / forward, altogether) which amused me, managing to revive the echoes of past communist parades, where this slogan held a place of honor. Later, I concluded that a more suitable translation for Going On is "mergând mai departe" (moving forward). The gerund augments an important dynamic, that of a moment aimed at transition, a transition that is primarily of a mental nature. Among other things, I refer to the moment when I choose not to dwell, not to develop the possible substrate related to the communist period of the aforementioned slogan, and I preferred to move forward, choosing to approach a discourse distant from the wreckage of the past. Even the fact that the title was initially conceived in English denotes the intention to make it work in an Outer World. No, it is not blasphemy to bypass another conceptualization of the former communist bloc; it is not a mistake to refuse another aestheticization of the Eastern European exoticism. It is blasphemy not to speak about practices that emerge and develop in a different moment, apparently entirely detached from the anxieties and subjects that interested Romanian photographers from the previous generations, myself included. This almost new age moment reinforced my conviction that it is no longer necessary to draw forced and predictable links to the "eternal past" and that the focus now lies on the intention to reactualize the references and trends, in a spectrum that we can implicitly consider immediately connected to the context of contemporary Romanian photographic production. Why do I say implicitly? Because the ten artists exhibiting are linked through their university experience.

All are or have been students of the Photography and Dynamic Imaging Department of the National University of Arts in Bucharest, a formative context in which they were observed and subsequently engaged them in this project. It is essential not to project the present into the defunct language of lamentation anymore; it is no longer necessary. Romanian photography now benefits from absolutely all the means and opportunities to bypass the lamentations of the "we didn't know" kind. Therefore, its place should be within the context of similar and communicative realities. Here, the university framework is like a broody hen, offering opportunity and safety for the first steps, playing an important role. Just as private initiative is important, such as that by SwitchLab, which initiated this project making its materialization possible in the exhibition for which this text is written.

The exhibition in Bielefeld is an almost symbolic gesture, in the sense of a small delegation offering a basket of local products, all fresh and to be consumed on the spot, in the gracefulness of the moment, when those involved are still students or recent graduates. It's the moment when careers begin or are prematurely abandoned. I believe that such exhibitions have a purpose, a role different from the immediately recognizable one; it is not just about an exhibition with beautiful works made by young and talented students. I think such projects and all their phases, from selection, planning, and up to display or remuneration, function as a kind of simulation in which those involved must imagine a possible life lived within these parameters. I refer to uncertainties and frustrations of various kinds, to satisfactions and joys, disappointments and random incomes. The average age of those exhibiting is 25 years old, all artists active during their years of study and after graduation. All relate to photography in different ways and for different purposes. Now, photography rarely is just an object on a wall: we encounter explorations of more complex dimensionalities, where photography still plays the leading role. From photo-installations (Teodor Georgescu, Eva Chapkin, Crăița Niga) to images with a classic imprint (Nadina Stoica, Teodora Rotaru), the small delegation covers a current spectrum, that of global visual trends to which Romanian photography corresponds as a type of discourse.

As I had already anticipated, the subjects chosen by the 10 Romanian artists mark a new distancing. They no longer photograph "blocks of flats and factories," nor do they exalt the aesthetics related to a historical past with which they have had no contact and only heard about. The current artists prefer to explore, as in a post-apocalyptic scenario where new associations are made or long-forgotten solutions are adopted again. If Crăița Niga chooses to disassemble a book (designed by her) into a carefully organized fractal that seems to question the perception of objects (Joseph Kosuth’s "One and Three Chairs" comes to mind), Roxana Morar applies a type of artistic questioning with a 70s vibe, through a pop-art solution where repetition is amalgamated into a graphic form that generates the image. At the same time, Petra Maria problematizes identity through a series of self-portraits, as does Alexandra Cojocaru with her portraits, inviting us to reevaluate social perception standards through a confident approach. We encounter, almost entirely, introspections. Teodor Georgescu, with his series Work from Home, depitcs a slice of the unchanging everyday life despite the pandemic, explores a warm, safe zone where things unfold in a quasi-nostalgic dimension. Eva Chapkin remains faithful to the methods she started her career with. Chapkin produces a new introspective vortex, where she and her immediate intimate space (house/home) form a photographic object accompanied by several other images. Răzvan Șumilă opts for the classic exploration of the body, through a tandem of images paying homage to John Coplans’ recordings, while simultaneously becoming a classic ode to visual humanistic explorations: the nude. On another plane, different but not necessarily distant, Vlad Albu, with his seemingly emotionless image-objects, seems to detach into a timeless realm, defined by a controlled idealization of the inevitable. The choice of subjects and the composition beautify remnants (not ruins) that not only ask what remains? but especially how remains? These moments, I refer to such project-exhibitions, these small events akin to a message in a bottle, do not aim for fame but experience. The lives of those involved will not change because of this project (or who knows?), and the intention is to understand a necessary path for implementing standards that might apply in a potential future career. While the photographic production of the students from Bielefeld (the works that will form the corpus of the exhibition they will have at SwitchLab) resulted from a photographic safari they had in Bucharest - 2023, the works of the ten Romanian artists exhibited in Bielefeld are "brought from home" and organized as an excerpt from a generational portfolio, one that is actually vaster.

I think that what is happening is good, in terms of a revival. I refer to the ongoing delineation of a leap where very contemporary Romanian photography operates within different paradigms, ones specific to a less stagnant and much more fluid present. It is good to realize that, despite the limited visibility Romanian photography has, there is movement among recent generations of Romanian visual artists. This is the moment when we realize we are no longer looking to the West but are part of it, and things are happening at a common pace. The ghosts of the past have been exorcized (or forgotten), and those now have neither encountered nor been scared by them; they look in a different direction, differently, and I think this is also good. Moving forward means leaving some things behind. A constantly changing landscape, where what we once had in front of us will implicitly be left behind.

Michele Bressan
May, 2024

About Lab Switch SRL-D
Lab Switch SRL-D started its cultural activity in 2018 with the opening of SwitchLab space, located in the Palace of the Universe in Bucharest, where it will operate until December 2022. In September 2023, Lab Switch relocated to the premises of the Casei Presei Libere in Bucharest, within the cultural hub Atelierele Scânteia.
SwitchLab is a contemporary art platform dedicated to emerging visual artists in Romania and to the integration of the national visual art scene into the European cultural circuit.
Our medium and long term objective is to build a constant program of exhibitions and cultural events through which on the one hand young artists are provided with a contemporary art space to be introduced to the Romanian cultural scene and to facilitate annual events aimed at connecting them to the foreign curatorial community, and on the other hand artists with a longer activity are included in the international contemporary art circuit through exhibitions organized in partnership with public and private cultural institutions outside Romania.
In the period 2018-2023, the SwitchLab team has successfully implemented, as Applicant, ten projects funded by AFCN, one project funded by ARCUB and one project funded by ICR.

Exhibition: GoingON

Location: HSBI - University of Applied Science and Arts- Bielefeld, Germania

Opening: 12.06.2024, 18h

Visiting period: 13.06.2024 -04.07.2024

Visiting schedule: Tuesday - Friday, 10:00 - 19:00

Address: Lampingstr. 3, 33615, Bielefeld

______________________________________________________________________________ 

Curator: Michele Bressan

Artists: Vlad Albu, Eva Chapkin, Alexandra Cojocaru, Teodor Georgescu, Petra Maria, Roxana Morar, Craița Niga, Teodora Rotaru, Nadina Stoica, Răzvan Sumila

*This project is cofinanced by the Romanian Cultural Institute through the Cantemir Programme - a funding framework for cultural projects intended for the international environment.
The Romanian Cultural Institute cannot be held responsible for the content of this material.