Artists: Yane Calovski, Hristina Ivanoska
With the participation of selected artists in the mentorship If a story is present: Loredana Ilie, Andreea Ioniță, Ana Kun, Bogdan Matei, Teo Papadopol, Gavril Pop, Ioana Terheș și Mihai Toth
Curator: Diana Marincu
Exhibition dates: 7 Iulie – 3 Septembrie 2022
Organiser: Art Encounters Foundation
Financer: The Administration of the National Cultural Fund, Centrul de Proiecte al Municipiului Timișoara
Sponsors: ISHO, Thesaurus, Illy
Media partners: TVR Timișoara, Radio România Cultural, RFI România, Observator Cultural, Zeppelin, Modernism, Revista Arta, The Institute, Propagarta, StudentFest
Graphic design: Karina Isar
Art Encounters Foundation presents IF A STORY IS PRESENT, the first exhibition in Romania dedicated to internationally renowned Macedonian artists Yane Calovski and Hristina Ivanoska, who live and work in Skopje and Berlin. If a story is present is curated by Diana Marincu and it includes a selection of recent works, both individual and collaborative, as well as a newly produced collective installation with a group of young and emerging artists based in Timișoara, participating in the mentorship organized between May and July this year: Loredana Ilie, Andreea Ioniță, Ana Kun, Bogdan Matei, Teo Papadopol, Gavril Pop, Ioana Terheș, and Mihai Toth.
IF A STORY IS PRESENT is built around a nucleus of works developed over the last five years concerning the Open Form theory, one of the most experimental approaches to art and architecture conceived by Polish architect Oskar Hansen. Flexibility, collective participation, the activation of a “perceptive background,” and individual expression are a few of the elements of the conceptual and pedagogical guidelines that he put forward. Calovski and Ivanoska take these theoretical principles further and, through visual and text-based exercises, focus on society’s invisible structure and propose an extension of the institutional and artistic framework towards a view of the city and individuals as various elements in a composition. This view can create an elastic, non-hierarchical territory offering several conceptual directions for the exhibition by exploring concepts of decentralization of ideas through formal and chromatic typographical language.
Hansen’s unrealized museum proposal for Skopje, with multiple patterns of folding and expansion, is another solid conceptual frame of reference. On the other hand, the exhibition presents works that approach manual labor and the forms of comprehending, interpreting, and representing processes of narration. However, the narrative strategies are activated within the politics of memory and oblivion, fragmented histories and fictional, imaginary spaces.
Organiser: Art Encounters Foundation
Financer: The Administration of the National Cultural Fund, the City of Timișoara Centre for Projects
Sponsors: ISHO, Thesaurus, Illy
Media partners: TVR Timișoara, Radio Romania Cultural, RFI Romania, Observator Cultural, Zeppelin, Modernism, ARTA Magazine, The Institute, Propagarta, StudentFest
Graphic design: Karina Isar
This project is part of the Timișoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture Programme and is financed by the Timișoara Municipality through the City of Timișoara Centre for Projects.
This exhibition is part of ART-UP, a cultural project that has been co-financed by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The 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 for the way in which the project’s results can be used. These aspects fall wholly under the responsibility of the grant beneficiary.