Buldozer privindu-se în oglindă (Bulldozer watching itself in the mirror)
A project by Cezar Lăzărescu
8, 9, 10 August 2014
The esplanade of the Iaşi Palace of Culture
Inauguration: Friday, 8 August 2014, 19.00h
In 1997, the Iaşi artist Cezar Lăzărescu imagined a project for the public space around the Câlnic castle, part of an exhibition organised by the Bucharest SOROS Centre for Contemporary Art . His proposal at the time – Buldozer privindu-se în oglindă (Bulldozer watching itself in the mirror) –, however, did not materialise until now, in 2014, when tranzit. ro/ Iași committed to putting it into practice as part of the project Mecanica unui proiect de artă în spațiul public din Iași (The mechanics of a contemporary art project in the public space in Iaşi).
Bulldozer watching itself in the mirror is staged for the first time in Romania, in Iaşi, on the Esplanade of the Palace of Culture, and, beyond the meanings that anyone could project onto it, this project consists in practice of the improbable juxtaposition of two objects of a functional nature: a bulldozer and a mirror. The juxtaposition of the two may attract the sympathy of the casual onlooker towards an object that signifies brute force, the basic instrument in the implementation of urban change, and, at the same time, a disruption of the day-to-day urban landscape – a different kind of spectacle. The artist's gesture, materialized in this temporary sculpture, relies on the wider public's monotonous perception of art by making an apparently brutal intervention, while at the same time appealing to empathy.
Art in the public space can teach one to DEMAND MORE THAN FIREWORKS and that it is meant to INTERRUPT RATHER THAN EMBELLISH... These are rules number 6 and 7 of the 12 NEW RULES OF PUBLIC ART imagined by Situations and Claire Doherty in 2014, rules that reimagine the whats and wherefores of public art.
The mechanics of a contemporary art project in the public space in Iași concerns the prospecting and materialization of an infrastructure that is most often invisible, consisting of governmental and nongovernmental organisations, funding means and mechanisms , local and regional public authorities, as well as the various relationships that need to be established between them and an artist in order to realize a contemporary art project in the public space of Iaşi. Establishing durable connections, based on genuine mutual knowledge and trust between the various agents of this dynamic field is one of the long-term objectives of tranzit. ro/ Iași.
Cezar LĂZĂRESCU is a Romanian artist living and working in Iași. He graduated from „G. Enescu” University of Iași and is a founding member of Vector Association, since 2001. Among many others he participated in exhibitions such as: ”OPEN AIR CINEMA – DEMOLITION”, Chișinău, 2012, "Salon Video", ALERT Studio, Bucharest , 2012 ”The City Menace a critical view of urban space”, Iași, 2012, "Friends of the Divided Mind", Royal College of Art, London 2009. In 2012, tranzit.ro/ Iași organized its first solo show and retrospective Cezar Lăzărescu: I like Periferic 3 and in 2013 he exhibited in the frame of "Spații în așteptare II" (Waiting Spaces II) organised in Timoșoara. In 2014 he participated, together with 1+1, at Bucharest Biennale 6, with ”BB+„ project. “Using incredible easy means (sometimes exclusively conceptual) I try to overpass the intellectual prejudices and stereotypes, being aware of the place I hold in the world and as well as of the fact that I can use and I can be used.” (Cezar Lăzărescu)
The team: Andrei Pripasu, Florin Bobu, Cezar Lăzărescu, Delia Bulgaru, Livia Pancu, Sorana Lupu and Andrei Timofte.
Thanks to: Dan Acostioaei, Ionuț Tudor, Mihai Vereștiuc, the Iaşi City Hall and Mihai Pricop.
Arhitect: Andrei Pripasu
Curator: Livia Pancu & 1+1
Main partner of the project "Mecanica Unui Proiect de Artă Contemporană în spaţiul public" ("The mechanics of a contemporary art project in the public space"):
the Iaşi County Council, through the 2014 Programme for non-reimbursable funding granted by the Iaşi County budget
Partners:
MECON LTD, Iași
The Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, Iași
The main partner of tranzit. ro is ERSTE Foundation.
