The first session of the tele-workshop recently took place on Microsoft Teams platform, and it was addressed to students in the program of studies in Photography and Video Art at the Faculty of Visual Arts and Design of "George Enescu" National University of the Arts in Iasi, Romania. In addition to this tele-workshop on "Political Bodies", the artist Tobias Zielony had on display a series of works on the online platform Visiting Artists of the Aparte Gallery website (aparte.arteiasi.ro). The event was mediated by the curator Cătălin Gheorghe (“George Enescu” National University of the Arts, Iași, and Vector Studio). 

Photo - Hannes Wiedemann in Berlin Art Link, https://www.berlinartlink.com/2018/04/04/tobias-zielony/

In Galeria Municipal do Porto, between Sept. 12th and Nov. 15th 2020, a group exhibition of a few artists took place. The exposition was an effect of the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize.

The competition was created in 2015 to commemorate the former conciliary for culture. The contest is aimed at artists under 40 years of age, with different backgrounds, and from different parts of the world.

The art that was exhibited in the Galeria Municipal do Porto was selected from the portfolios of 48 artists.



The jury decided to pick artists from different cultural and geographical backgrounds. The artistic practices also vary in the exhibition. Exhibiting such different art in one space was clearly challenging. Creating a consistent context that would bond all the art in a meaningful curatorial wholeness is never easy. While picking such different artists, the curators of this exposition had an even harder task to do.

As visitors can learn from the Jury’s Statement, the artists that were chosen were those who could get "an energy booster" from being awarded the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize. Moreover, the jury decided to pick artists engaged in current issues, but not only politically. The chosen works comment on modern events but can also be a tool to meditate or reinvigorate. They comment and extend traditional forms and mediums, and talk about nations through the lens of personal experience.

The winners were Basir Mahmood, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Firenze Lai, Song Ta, Lebohan Kganye and Stefani Jemison. 

The exhibition “ARCHIVE. Aparte Gallery 2005 - 2020” (open between October - November), presented in Aparte Gallery, UNAGE Iași, reveals to the public a selection of events and exhibitional projects of contemporary art realized within the Aparte Gallery of the “George Enescu” National University of the Arts (UNAGE) from Iași, starting from 2005. „The exhibitions were made both by UNAGE Iași students, as part of the educational process of learning and applying knowledge and practicing skills specific to exhibition thinking and practice, as well as teachers or guest artists, reflecting the plurality of experiments specific to contemporary art practices”, sais the curatorial team. The coordinators of the project are the curators Lavinia German, Cătălin Gheorghe, Daniel Sofron, Cătălin Soreanu and Mihai Vereștiuc. 

The Balearic artist Gabriel Llinàs at the end of his residency in Belgrade Air, within the framework of the Home session Exchange program, will hold an exhibition entitled “Shades of White”.



Shades of White presents artistic research on the multilayered historical evolution of Belgrade, focusing on its architectural heritage as a device to understand its inhabitants’ behaviors, traditions and relations with urban space. The framework of the research goes from the Roman occupation of Singidunum at the IV century to nowadays, paying attention to crutial episodes underlying Belgrade, the city under which more battles have been waged, as affirmed by The British Encyclopedia of Cities. To deepen into this background, the project departs from an speculative exploration of the slavic name Beograd (The White City), which dates back to the IX century, in spite that no clear evidence of its origin has been found.


The uncertain reason of the name becomes an excuse to explore its identity in a wider and more experimental way, understanding the city as a melting-pot. In this sense, the project holds a tension between white, conceived as a peaceful and stable colour, and the city’s endless history of conflicts and enigmas.

The exhibition organized by CEAR (Center for Aesthetic Research and Artistic Creation) and the National University of Arts "George Enescu" Iasi / Faculty of Visual Arts and Design, within the events marking 160 years of Iasi artistic education, with financial support from the City Hall Iași, was presented in the Victoria Gallery space. “The Crossroads exhibition, which brings together works by UNAGE Iași alumni who have chosen to settle in other cities in Romania or abroad, has opened and can be visited at the Victoria Hall of UAPR in Iasi until November 10. Thank you to all the artists who agreed to participate in this exhibition ", said Cristian Nae, curator of the project. 

The exhibition Freedom of Breath corresponds to the current global situation, even in the most banal sense, the current regulation of rules and prohibitions, the privilege of free breathing, dominant confusion and distrust in what is shown, presented, determine the truth and the right to it. The replacement of concepts and their meanings, the manipulation and transposition of the physical into the social distance, supports the constant diversion of attention to alienation and exclusion from society, as a current problem, its vulnerability.

One figure of a woman, dressed, in an environment in which it is not natural, accepts the weight of her burden through her clothes, without physical stripping, without politicizing the feminist, she is the heroine of her story. Water is a metaphor for constant personal activism, life, and art. Water is also a metaphor of different sensibilities and its weapon and shield in its own struggle. The enemy may be loneliness, but it is an illusion, because of its ambivalent character, it is difficult, but often necessary for self-knowledge, self-upgrading. In the present, there is often a latent or explicit subversion of the cult of loneliness-self-sufficiency, through self-help, strengthening of self-confidence, positive thoughts and ultimate optimism, exclusive categories that make loneliness itself bearable or absurd.

Yet universal religiosity, art or philosophy is born, lives, and survives outside the institutions. The vitality of water and women in symbiosis repeatedly explain the different characters of the female principle, her sexual and gender role, her religious or philosophical mysticism, she as an inexhaustible theme of artistic inspiration, her right not to delay the right to freedom through all appearances and appearances, and for the aesthetic dimension to always be poetry that becomes an activist act of the individual. 
                               

About the artist:

Ivana Živić (Sarajevo, 1979) is a painter who lives and works in Belgrade.


She graduated in painting in 2004 at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Department of Painting, where she received her master's degree two years later. Since 2006, she has been a permanent member of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (ULUS), and since then she has been present at 22 solo and over 50 group exhibitions in the country and abroad. She is the winner of the drawing award of the Salon of Fine Arts of France ( Salon des Beaux Arts 2019), the award from the drawing fund Vladimir Veličković (2016), the first award of the Rotary Club (2014), the award for production of work from the Dimitrija Bašičević Mangelos Foundation (2012), and Diplomas for drawing from the Second Biennial of Drawing in Pancevo (2009). She has exhibited at Nord Art (2017 and 2016), as well as at The Other Art Fair in partnership with Saatchi Onlinegallery in London (2019). She has participated in art residencies: Month of Serbian Art at the Arthab Center in Abu Dhabi, UAE (2018), GLOART Center in Lanaken, Belgium (2015) and Cite Internationale des Arts Paris in France (2009). Her works can be found in the Wiener Städtische collection of contemporary Serbian art as well as in numerous private collections around the world.

The Exhibition Waves and Whirpools was opened in the Municipal Gallery of Porto on the 12th of September and will last until the 15th of November. Curator Martha Kirszenbaum presents the works of Luís Lázaro Matos. The exposition includes seven diptych paintings and four tondos.

As visitors can learn from the exhibition description, all the pictures were inspired by seven songs released by the artist: The Waves of Lisbon, Sea Turtle, Laika Surfing Cosmic Waves, Red Sea, Whirlpools, Bermuda Triangle, and Tsunami. The paintings have the same names as the titles of the songs.



The aesthetic of all the exhibited pictures is similar. In all of them, the artist uses bright colours, big brush strokes, and black contour. All pictures refer to the sea and life in the ocean, and viewers can see in them elaborated references to ocean/sea mythology.

On each picture, the viewer can notice a persona that can be interpreted as the artist himself. All the creatures that appear in the paintings seem to create music: singing, playing keyboards, striking the guitar. On some of them, the musician is presented as a human, on the others as water animals, such as a turtle or a stingray.

The representation that ties the series together is a rope that passes through different elements of images, visually tangling them together. It's not a sailing rope as one could expect from the marine topic of the paintings, but rather an electric cable. The cord can be interpreted as an inseparable connection of these paintings with music, and a musician’s life. The audio jack not only connects all pictures (and instruments presented on them) but is also a visual reminder about the musical inspiration for this series.


On one of the diptychs, aliens appear. They sit on a palm tree singing or saying something into the microphone. That representation may not seem to suit the others. However, it's connected with the author's fascination with conspiracy theories. The artist doesn't hide his interest in the secrets of the Bermuda Triangle. The curator, in a very interesting way, composed the exhibition in the mezzanine of the gallery, which has a triangle shape, creating a space where visitors can be caught by the waves of the art.



The series can be interpreted as an allegorical self-portrait of the painter. However, the life dictated by the ocean, inseparable from the sea can be familiar to many Portuguese people. In this country, for ages life and culture were connected with life on the sea. For sailors, fishermen, and nowadays even surfers, the water can be a determinant of the rhythm of life.

Another important part of the exhibition are four tondos that are situated on the gallery walls. They are much smaller than the big paintings, so it's easy to miss them. All of them present the moon and at first sight they seem to be identical, but they have a few differences. The tondos represent the four different phases of the moon: first quarter, full moon, last quarter, and the new moon. When it comes to the ocean, moon phases are very important. They're responsible for creating tides. 

The Art Museum of Cluj-Napoca, together with the University of Art and Design, institutional collaborator in organizing this event, presented in the Bánffy Palace between September-October, the collective exhibition under the suggestive generic "Gone With the Wind". The exhibition brings to the public's attention an illustrative selection of dissertation projects taken at the graduation exam at the end of the academic year 2019-2020 by master students of the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, specialization "Painting", made under the guidance of the coordinating teachers Ioan Sbârciu and Olimpia-Georgeta Bera. The exhibition includes works by Oana-Cătălina Asavei, Tiziana Bianca Cellino, Mădălin Ciucă, Tudor Costin, Farkas Andreea, Patricia-Denisa Isip, Maria-Theodora Ispas, Kalabér Timea, Andrei Nuţu, Cosmin-Marin Sandu, Paula-Maria Sgândăr, Szekely Sevan, Simona-Daniela Tudose and Diana-Amelia Varga. 

Remembering summer festivals, when people made a mass of close contact, colliding in a musical ritual caused by heavy metal sounds. This series of photos was taken at the Austrian festival Nova Rock 2015. Chaotic exchange of energies, unpredictable body movements and a friendly audience which, although it may not look like that, is very open to everyone, even to the girl with the camera.

"Šutke" (shootke) is a type of "game" people who go to concerts and stand in the front rows play. It is something like wrestling, running, and slamming into each other following the beat and melody of the music. It can give you bruises, yes, it is a rough game, but it is fun!

This series of photographs also celebrate those who already practice this dance ritual what they certainly miss during the pandemic. The result is documentary photographs without the time and conditions for a perfect shot, which creates a conflict in the author to achieve this.

The theme of the audience at the concert, recording energy, emotions and movement is a project of the author that is already ongoing and can get another face of its own in a future exhibition.

Recently I viewed BIOS, an interactive and intriguing art exhibition centered on the concept of the Anthropocene phenomenon. Presented in an art space in Brașov, the Multicultural Center of the Transilvania University, the exhibition gathers art installations created by ten young romanian artists, curated by RIZI and scrutinizes invisible or ignored human processes that lead to debates about Anthropocene and the new geological era. Through artistic installations, the artists distill major concepts of the anthropocene phenomenon and inquire it’s particular aesthetics.

BIOS exhibition. Photos by Cosmina Marcela OLTEAN

“Substantial evidence on human impact hints on the fact that humans are now a force as powerful as nature itself. Ice ages and major extinction events are in the nature of nature. Considering the Earth’s entire existence as a timescale, humans are in it at 0,0057% of the whole existence of life on the blue planet. In this short time, humanity has accumulated power over nature thanks to technological and scientific advances. Through direct and indirect butterfly-effect actions, humanity has exploited this power to it’s benefit, leading to significant interspecies inequalities. The power of awareness, technology and immediate action can be steered in exciting but also dangerous directions”, points out the curator. “Can we use our technological power to harmonize with the analogue nature?”, “what could be the journey of the individual to the collective projection of the future?”, “what about a symbiotic interspecies relationship?” – these are the main questions raised by the artistic project presented the participating artists.