EXHIBITION
3rd of August 2024 – 31st of October 2024
OPENING: 3rd of August 2024, 8.00 p.m. with a public event starting at 4.00 p.m. @tranzit.ro/ Iasi,
Address: GreenHouse, Str. Sf. Atanasie nr. 25, Iași
Artists: Škart(group), Andreas Fogarasi, Preeti Kathuria, Sarah Muscalu, Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor, s.a.b.a (Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu), Vladimir Us & Oberliht Association, REDURB Research Group (Enikő Vincze, Sorin Gog, Ioana Florea, George Zamfir, Mișa Dumitriu, Marina Mironica, Livia Pancu, Manuel Aalbers).
On 4th of August 2024, performative events with Cezar Lăzărescu, Cătălin Gheorghe and Cristina Moraru, Andrei Pripasu, Livia Pancu & Florin Bobu and Andrei Gavril. (closed event)
During the last few decades, the city became a nexus of social struggles and an important point of reference for artists, architects, social scientists, urbanists and activists and this expressed in movements such as the “Right to the City” that emphasized the need for inclusivity, accessibility, and democracy in urban spaces. The neoliberal turn with its overall transformation of our societies and the promotion of capital-intensive models of development as compared to the extractivist or labor intensive ones also opened the space of contestation in which all these social, cultural and political practices are broadly situated.
The history of the Iasi contemporary art scene itself is connected to these historical transformations of which the proliferation of the biennial culture and its in-depth analysis of the urban spaces is a clear symptom. In the late 90s and the 2000s, the Periferic Biennial focused on the city of Iasi and reflected the political efforts to join the European Union. Under the banner of decentralization, cities became much more relevant than before while important changes occurred also at the level of the nation states, so in many of the cultural productions of this entire period we have the city as a very important level of analysis and critical scrutiny.
The exhibition Museum Of Real Estate Development attempts to join the discussion regarding the financialization of the economy, whereby financial markets dictate what happens on the markets and exploit the created objects through their financial value (beyond their use or social value), reflects on how financialization affects the ”real economy” in processes such as deindustrialization, privatization, etc and interrogates how our cities change as a result of these processes.
The exhibition takes its cue from Redurb Research Group’s analysis on how our cities change through the real estate development carried out by developers, investors, banks; how real estate development connects multiple geographies of the world through real estate and financial capital flows; why it is a source of capital accumulation but also a beneficiary of many people's indebtedness; how real estate development was born on former industrial lands and other urban areas, exploiting not only physical urban spaces but also people's needs for a home, a place where to work, a location for shopping and entertainment; how urban planning is subordinated to the interests of this development, becoming a tool for gentrification or segregation of different kinds; how real estate development captures public spaces and redefines, in function of its interests, the “right to the city”.
Trying to connect to the materiality of these processes, the exhibition gathers artistic, activist or academic positions which problematize the social transformations of the last decades in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. While doing so, it questions the role of artists and other public intellectuals in shaping these processes.
The exhibition takes its cue from Redurb Research Group’s analysis on how our cities change through the real estate development carried out by developers, investors, banks; how real estate development connects multiple geographies of the world through real estate and financial capital flows; why it is a source of capital accumulation but also a beneficiary of many people's indebtedness; how real estate development was born on former industrial lands and other urban areas, exploiting not only physical urban spaces but also people's needs for a home, a place where to work, a location for shopping and entertainment; how urban planning is subordinated to the interests of this development, becoming a tool for gentrification or segregation of different kinds; how real estate development captures public spaces and redefines, in function of its interests, the “right to the city”.
Trying to connect to the materiality of these processes, the exhibition gathers artistic, activist or academic positions which problematize the social transformations of the last decades in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. While doing so, it questions the role of artists and other public intellectuals in shaping these processes.
Andreas Fogarasi’s video work Europe (2016) “shows the tourism-logos of the countries of Europe, in a steady succession, arranged alphabetically and reduced to black and white (with no gray scales).” OK (Travertine) (2023) Travertin (Unirii Square, Iasi, Romania), and Work / Life 2022/24 Linoleum floor (office building at Franz Josefs Kai 51, Vienna, architect Josef Becvar, 1970, demolished 2019) are part of Andreas Fogarasi’s Nine Buildings, Stripped, a long-term project that “documents the changing architectural surfaces of the city by collecting actual fragments of buildings, both demolished and newly built”. Škart’s series of drawing Tenants Traumas (2024) take as a starting point the “experiences, or traumas, of being a tenant in the big city”. Filmed during an artistic residency in Singapore, Mona Vătamanu and Florin Tudor videos deal with the quasi absence of the workers from our current collective worldview. The end of the working day (2015) documents the returning journey from work of a group of young men working in the area of HarbourFront to their sleeping places nearby to Changi airport in Singapore. An extraordinary visual representation of the marxist theory of alienation, When I work I miss them, when I sleep also I miss them (2015) video work captures fragments of reality for just as long as light is being provided by the welding process.”s.a.b.a (Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu)’ Video Monuments (2018) focus on a generation of workers that fueled the socialist political project in the Central and Eastern Europe. Following the path of social and economic survival strategies before and after 1989, the videos also point towards stories about smuggling and entrepreneurial attempts that cast a prototype of capitalist persona starting with the late 70’s throughout the transition years of the 90’s.” Vladimir Us & Oberliht Association installation Chisinau Civic Center – beyond the red lines (2024) give an overview of more of a decade of activities (artistic interventions, architecture workshops, community events, etc) organized by Oberliht Association around Zaikin Park, a piece of green area located in the historic part of the city of Chisinau that was caught under Cantemir Bulevard, a piece of infrastructure that was planned during socialist period that never actually materialized. Preeti Kathuria, Consequent Land,(2024) installation ( cotton fabric, paint, ink, cotton rope, clamps) dimensions variable, “is a collective expression of the crisis in the agriculture sector in India that has been addressed by some contemporary artists, many of whom come from the rural context themselves. This installation brings together the titles of artworks that typically address land as a recurrent theme.” Sarah Muscalu’s work, 4th SHIFT (2023) “represents an investigative, documentary, experimental and performative approach, that consists in a visual collage whose main subject is built around the possibilities of working with the archive. This video installation project proposes the exercise of witnessing the city as an archive, while it is questioning the current condition of urban transformations and collective memory related to the site of the former Textile Factory in Iași.”
Škart’s series of drawing Tenants Traumas (2024) take as a starting point the “experiences, or traumas, of being a tenant in the big city”. Leaving his hometown for Belgrade, when he was 18, Đorđe Balmazović changes 17 apartments gathering different experiences and traumas as a tenant in the big city.
Filmed during an artistic residency in Singapore, Mona Vătamanu and Florin Tudor videos deal with the quasi absence of the workers from our current collective worldview. ”The end of the working day (2015) documents the returning journey from work of a group of young men working in the area of HarbourFront to their sleeping places nearby to Changi airport in Singapore. The footage was filmed in a continuous shot, the men were sitting quietly, during the trip one fell asleep. Like many others they are doing this trip every day. Watching them, the audience can also focus on their background, the material product of their everyday work in construction, the city or the megapolis, glittering in the dark. An extraordinary visual representation of the marxist theory of alienation, When I work I miss them, when I sleep also I miss them (2015) captures fragments of reality for just as long as light is being provided by the welding process. The workers repetitive movements and actions become visible for some fractions of seconds only to disappear in the dark again and again.”
s.a.b.a (Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu) ”Video Monuments (2018) focus on a generation of workers that fueled the socialist political project in the Central and Eastern Europe and felt betrayed both by the economic shortages of 80’s and the transition to capitalism of the 90’s and 2000’s. Following the path of social and economic survival strategies before and after 1989, the videos also point towards stories about smuggling and entrepreneurial attempts that cast a prototype of capitalist persona starting with the late 70’s throughout the transition years of the 90’s.” (s.a.b.a.)
Vladimir Us & Oberliht Association installation Chisinau Civic Center – beyond the red lines (2024) give an overview of more of a decade of activities (artistic interventions, architecture workshops, community events, etc) organized by Oberliht Association around Zaikin Park, a piece of green area located in the historic part of the city of Chisinau that was caught under Cantemir Bulevard, a piece of infrastructure that was planned during socialist period that never actually materialized. The General Urbanistic Plan of Chisinau acts both as a protector of this small park and also as a continuous threat to its very existence.
Preeti Kathuria, Consequent Land,(2024) installation ( cotton fabric, paint, ink, cotton rope, clamps) dimensions variable, “is a collective expression of the crisis in the agriculture sector in India that has been addressed by some contemporary artists, many of whom come from the rural context themselves. This installation brings together the titles of artworks that typically address land as a recurrent theme. Although the artworks do not share a common analysis of the crisis, many commentators have identified inequality and corporatisation as key drivers of the crisis. The titles painted on the cotton fabric bear a cacophony of artistic voices and opinions. These words represent how the artists understand the crisis and how their practice describes, delivers or distorts the real situation. The surface of the fabric is silkscreened with motifs of cotton plant, a gentle reminder of the fact that India is world’s largest producer of cotton. It is one of the most important commercial crops cultivated in India and accounts for around 23% of the total global cotton production. Cultivation of cotton plays a major role in sustaining the livelihood of millions of farmers and people engaged in related activities of cotton processing and trade. Similar to this continuous scroll of fabric, both the agrarian crisis and the response to this crisis are ongoing…”
Sarah Muscalu’s work, 4th SHIFT (2023) “represents an investigative, documentary, experimental and performative approach, that consists in a visual collage whose main subject is built around the possibilities of working with the archive. This video installation project proposes the exercise of witnessing the city as an archive, while it is questioning the current condition of urban transformations and collective memory related to the site of the former Textile Factory in Iași. This project is the result of an artistic research based on working with an archive of images of the Textile Factory in Iași built in 1910, which was demolished more than five years ago, meanwhile a Dedeman, a Lidl supermarket, a Jumbo store and a gas station were built on the same site.”
The exhibition extends through a series of performative events, on the 4th of August 2024, happening in various on site locations in the city of Iași initiated by artists, curators and cultural workers such as Cezar Lăzărescu, Cătălin Gheorghe and Cristina Moraru, Andrei Pripasu, Livia Pancu & Florin Bobu and Andrei Gavril.
To visit the exhibition, please write an email at livia.pancu@tranzit.org
This exhibition is realised in the frame of Museum of Real Estate Development project.
The project is organized by tranzit.ro/ Iasi and 1+1 (Iași) in partnership of Oberliht Association (Chisinau), Fundația Desire (Cluj-Napoca), Asociația Quantic (București) and National University of Arts George Enescu (Iași). This is a cultural project co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. (AFCN). This project does not necessarily represent the position of The Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how project results can be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.
Image: video still, When I work I miss them, when I sleep also I miss them,(2015), Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor