15.11.2023.-04.03.2024
It gives us great pleasure to invite you to the exhibition of one of the most important contemporary artists of her generation, Ioana Nemeș, entitled “Rituals, Keepers and Storms.” Curated by Diana Marincu and Kilobase Bucharest, the exhibition has as strategic partners the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent (S.M.A.K.), the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Romania (MNAC), and ISHO.
The exhibition Rituals, Keepers and Storms represents a necessary gesture of reassessment and documentary research of the body of works Relics for the Afterfuture (Brown), created between 2009–2010 by the late artist Ioana Nemeș (1979–2011).
This cutout from the artist’s remarkable creation, who left us far too soon, restores one of the major thematic directions of her creative laboratory and represents the early nucleus of a larger project that the current exhibition foreshadows. The Art Encounters Foundation thus continues its mission to restore worthy visibility to valuable artists and contribute to their understanding in the broader context.
Ioana Nemeș left behind a body of work that has developed over time its incredible strength and ability to speak about topics that are still relevant today. Developing an atypical artistic practice, Ioana Nemeș could not be associated with any school, trend, or generation, always looking for the way to that fundamental core of visual knowledge. Her reflections on time and identity created scenarios about representation and self-representation, real or fictional, intuiting the power of narrative to create reality.
The direct encounter with the sculptures, installations, and paintings of the Relics for the Afterfuture (Brown) series – surprising in scale and proportions, through the uninhibited combination of natural materials (horn, wool, wood, fur) and traditional methods handed down from generation to generation by artisans from Maramureș, Vrancea, Brașov, with sleek resins, faience, concrete and contemporary production techniques – prove that a third way is possible by enhancing the possibilities of imagining new rituals for a different future infused with the primordial. A combination of magical ~ spiritual ~ utilitarian, and the exploration of a rather conceptually minimalist visual vein, infused by Ioana Nemeș’s obsession with design, appears on the one hand as a counterpoint to the attempts to preserve and museify in an unaltered state a bygone world and, on the other hand, as the meaning of an artistic gesture of insurrection against attempts to instrumentalize folklore within nationalist agendas.
⌛ The exhibition will be open from November 15, 2023, to March 9, 2024. It can be visited at the Art Encounters Foundation in Timișoara from Tuesday to Saturday, between 12:00 and 18:00, offering a guided tour every Saturday from 17:00.
🔔 On the occasion of the opening on Wednesday, November 15, from 18:00, there will also be a special guided tour in the presence of curators Diana Marincu & Kilobase Bucharest.
📔 Lovers of the artist and Romanian contemporary art will also be able to purchase a volume by the artist Ioana Nemeș, published in 2014, made available through the stand organized by La Două Bufnițe bookstore.
Also, on December 8, the exhibition will benefit from a performance by the transdisciplinary artistic collective Apparatus 22, among whose founding members was Ioana Nemeș. Details of this event will be announced soon.
🆓 Entry is free. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you! 🙏
📝 Ioana Nemeș (1979–2011) was one of the most prominent Romanian artists of her generation. She studied photography with Iosif Király at the National University of Arts in Bucharest. She was also a performance athlete in the national handball team until the age of 21 when, following a severe injury, she had to give up that career and chose to study art. The works and artistic research of Ioana Nemeș were born from the need to communicate and visualize as clearly as possible the mechanisms hidden behind the visual, linguistic, and psychological systems that define us. The late artist had participated in major exhibitions such as the Istanbul Biennale (2009), U-Turn Copenhagen (2008), the Prague Biennale (2007), and the Bucharest Biennale 2 (2006). Her works have been exhibited at Art in General (New York), Secession (Vienna), Smart Project Space (Amsterdam), Kunsthalle Fridericianum (Kassel), Royal College of Art (London), Salonul de Proiecte (Bucharest), Eastside Projects (Birmingham), Triumf Amiria. Queer Culture Museum (Bucharest), Caixaforum (Barcelona), MNAC (Bucharest), Krolikarnia Sculpture Museum (Warsaw), Uj Gallery (Budapest), Goethe Institute (Sofia), Kim? (Riga), Bozar (Brussels), Bunkier Sztuki (Krakow), Trafo (Budapest), Drodesera Festival (Dro), Contemporary Art Gallery – Brukenthal Museum (Sibiu), Jiří Švestka Gallery (Prague), Wonnerth Dejaco Gallery (Vienna), Between Bridges Foundation (Berlin), and has appeared in publications such as 100 New Artists (published by Laurence King) and Romanian Cultural Resolution (published by Hatje Cantz). Ioana Nemeș was also a laureate of the Future of Europe award from the Galerie Fur Zeitgenossische Kunst in Leipzig (2007) and was an artist in residence at Art in General (2011), IASPIS Stockholm (2010), Kulturkontakt Vienna (2004). Ioana Nemeș’s artistic practice also included participation as a founding member in the activity of several collectives active in art, fashion, and interior design: Kilobase Bucharest (2010–2011), Apparatus 22 (2011), Rozalb de Mura (2004–2010) and Liste Noire (2004–2011).
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i ️ The exhibition is organized by the Art Encounters Foundation and is co-financed by the Municipality of Timișoara through the Center for Projects and the Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN), with MNAC Bucharest and S.M.A.K. Ghent as strategic partners.
*The project is part of the national cultural program “Timișoara – European Capital of Culture in 2023” and is financed through the European Echoes program, run by the Center for Projects of the Municipality of Timișoara, with amounts allocated from the state budget, through the budget of the Ministry of Culture.
**The project does not necessarily represent the position of the National Cultural Fund Administration. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.