Bucharest. Dan Perjovschi stood with his back against a performer dressed as a miner on Bucharest’s University Square, the symbolic site of the bloody student revolt of June 1990. Later, a female performer playing a student took the place of the artist. The blows of the miners upon the demonstrating students were recalled using symbolic gestures. The artist defined the event, which the media followed with a degree of interest unusual for art happenings, as a living sculpture with the title »Monument Hysteria/History», and thus stressed the necessity of keeping historical events alive in the memory of the older and the younger generations. After the execution of the dictator in 1989, the newly won freedom was consolidated by bloody deeds; in the so-called Mineriad, more than a hundred people at a student demonstration were killed by miners stirred up by the new government.
Perjovschi’s action in September served as a prelude to the project »Spatiul Public Bucuresti – Public Art Bucharest 2007«, curated by Marius Babias and Sabine Hetzsch, director of the Bucharest Goethe Institute. The curators’ aim was, in view of the lack of public initiatives, to show artistic projects as symbolic micro-projects that could contribute to the engagement with social and political problems in the public sphere. The task in Bucharest consisted not only in realising projects and presenting them at selected sites in the urban space, but in communicating information on the project to local decision-makers involved in cultural affairs. Dan and Lia Perjovschi are seen as pioneers in integrating the Romanian art scene into the international discourse. Since the 1990s, they have gradually become a two-person institution as local ambassadors for Romanian contemporary art. This means they also stand for the contradictions inherent in positions of power, despite the fact that they still exclude themselves from public recognition at home. Lia Perjovschi addressed the circumstances accompanying her existence as artist and ambassador by packing all materials of the CAA Contemporary Art Archive/Center for Art Analysis (catalogues, documentations and interviews with local and international art figures collected since 1985) in cartons, presented it as waiting to be inventoried and commented that the archive was affected by a rare illness (disease-dizzyeas).
The younger generation of artists that was invited referred to the current social, political and cultural situation in Romania. Daniel Knorr had several trams covered with symbols of the powerful but obscure institutions – such as the Orthodox Church, which is still one of the biggest nests of corruption, the military and the Red Cross – which then drove through the city for a month. The H.arta group from Timisoara, which has already made self-education the focus of its activities in earlier projects, organised promotion opportunities for local NGOs in Bucharest for a month under the name »Project Space«. Its interest was centred on the self-organised initiatives that are not satisfied with the conditions brought about by an uncontrolled market economy and that highlight alternatives with personal commitment.
In summer, short sequences from Aneta Mona Chia’s film were shown in cinemas and on public screens. In them, a furious woman screams out the sentence »Who the fuck are you starring at?« into the camera, thus rejecting the usual sexist view and representation of women as mere objects both in advertising and in everyday language. A visit to an industrial site drew attention to the lack of awareness of environmental issues in the city. Part areas and trees are being sacrificed to uncontrolled real-estate investments with complete impunity. The architect Serban Sturdza and the artist Virgil Scripcariu had tree stumps set up from trees that were cut down during the construction of a hypermarket. The Moldavian author and director Nicoleta Esinescu explored the problem of discrimination and the big financial divide in society. The city served as a »backdrop« for her play in a district where above all Roma people earn their money by selling scrap metal they have found or stolen. An actor joined a local metal dealer and quoted verses from Esinescus play »A (II) Rh+« such as »… My country is the most beautiful country in the world, my country is the biggest country in the world, my country is the bravest country in the world …«.
This new EU country, which promised its inhabitants great hopes with political persuasiveness, has introduced regulations that mean uncertainty for many. In the film »The Silence of the Lambs« (2004), Mircea Cantor has recorded the custom of the traditional Easter slaughter of lambs at the market before it disappears. In the short interviews with the shepherds and butchers at a market and an abattoir in Oradea, all complain about sinking purchase prices. Since EU accession, these people have even had to give up their meagre business. Although human fates are at stake, it is difficult for viewers to escape the exoticism of the images.
The artistic works in the project line up the current problems in Romanian society as dutifully as in a school text book. Public Art Bucharest was also supported by the cultural programme of the German EU presidency. Is it possible to hope that art will also educate politicians and that artists will be heard by society as guiding voices of awareness? Or will they become victims as a means to an end?
Translated by Timothy Jones