Program

Playing With The Past

A Word with Two Meanings We invent words, then let ourselves be subjugated by them. There would be no knowledge without words, but it is words again that grow into independent entities, obstacles that come between us and the real world. They move us closer to and at the

The New Man

An Individual without Individualism To a new society – a new man. Naturally, one would not fancy a communist world inhabited by middle-class people in disguise. That was the most delicate problem raised by transformist mythology. One could not rebuild the economy and

A History Of The Imaginary. The Truth Of The Myths

CHAPTER I Structures and Methods An Ambiguous Condition What if the history of the imaginary did not exist? Beyond all paradox, the question deserves to be raised. Following a hectic and contorted history, this discipline is hindered by theoretical and ideological difficulties.

1940-1947. The Romanian Surrealist Group

The message addressed to international surrealism. Theoretical contributions and techniques proposed by the Romanian surrealists Between 1938-1940, two young Romanian poets, Gellu Naum and Gherasim Luca, were in Paris – Naum to study philosophy, and Luca as the precarious

1922-1928

1922-1928. The Beginnings. Magazines and Manifestos. The Intellectual International. The Theorizing Machines. 75 HP – the New Start of the Romanian Avant-garde. Integralism and Synthesis. Synchronism and Internationalism The first avant-garde magazines and manifestos

The 20th Century - The Century Of Avant-Garde

The year 1900. Europe's countries are divided on the question: does the 20th century begin in 1900 or in 1901? Some opt for 1900, by virtue of the change in the figure of the hundreds. Others are partisans of 1901, for reasons of more sophisticated arithmetic. Particular

B. Fundoianu / Benjamin Fondane (1898-1944)

B. Fundoianu began to publish persistently and regularly in 1918, when he was twenty; with the determination that characterized him, he embarked upon a tireless mission that took all the attributes of a vocation: that of a messenger of French – hence European – culture

How Modern Is the Modern Romanian Fantastic?

As everything modern, the fantastic mode, which seems to be still one of our great favorites in these last years of the modern millennium is to be defined through the series of transformations of the traditional forms of the fantastic art. In her excellent reference book

Yesterday Will Be Another Day

I wonder if nature always plays the same game (Einstein) Of course I was coming from sleep, how else is a day supposed to start? However, I didn't know much about the world I was coming from. On the other hand, the world I had landed in should have been very familiar

Bucharest - Memory Walled-In

Architecture represents a means of interrogating history. Rather ominous, it is to be feared, when the question applies to the Romanian capital. Why so? The way Bucharest has been subjected to transformations in the last century accounts for the living changes affecting

Inns, Churches, Parks And Avenues

Bucharest became the capital of Wallachia in the middle of the sixteenth century in preference to the earlier sub‑Carpathian capitals of Câmpulung, Curtea de Argeş and Târgovişte. It became the capital of the united Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia

Laugh To The Left

In the visual arts, the laugh, the ridicule and caricature have a certain regime, which is rather different from the one developed in literature, mainly because it is an expression of criticism and contempt much more immediate and politically engaged. Starting in Germany