MONA VĂTĂMANU & FLORIN TUDOR

EXHIBITION PROGRAM 2009

ALL POWER TO THE IMAGINATION!
November 2, 2009 – January 24, 2010



Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor, All Power to the Imagination!, installation view, Secession 2009, photo: Wolfgang Thaler


All Power to the Imagination! is a new installation specially developed for the Grafisches Kabinett and the facade of the Secession by Romanian artists Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor.

In this work, the artist duo who have been working together since 2000 explore potentials of resistance, which they understand less as a dogmatic, didactic idea than as a subtle, poetic form of action. The artists’ interest in such an approach matches their skepticism towards political symbols and slogans which make a claim to truth.



Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor, All Power to the Imagination!, installation view, Secession 2009, photo: Wolfgang Thaler


The installation consists of several works in different media which are related in terms of both form and content. The room-filling installation in the Grafisches Kabinett centers on a floating stage with a fragmentary representation of the red and black flag of anarcho-syndicalism – now a global symbol for rebellion against hegemonic conditions within society. When stepping onto the double floor, visitors may feel a notion of instability. The resulting uncertainty symbolizes the social condition which has emerged as a consequence of a fundamental shift in values in the past twenty years.

Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor, Poem, 2009

The material density of the spatial composition contrasts with the immateriality of the film projection of Poem (2009). It shows the making of the banner with the words Trăiască şi înflorească Capitalismul! (“Long live and thrive Capitalism!”) which is mounted on the Secession’s facade. The text is a variation on the socialist slogan “Long live and thrive Socialism!” which was omnipresent in Communist Romania, thus reflecting the transformation from one system to another. The series of small-format paintings entitled Riots (2009) again refers to anarchist resistance in the form of its symbol, the red and black flag.

Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor, Riots, 2009

The works of Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor are based of a politics of remembering diametrically opposed to the collective trauma that lies in forgetting and repressing the events of recent Romanian history. In symbolic actions of visualisation and reparation, they campaign actively for a focus on and engagement with history. For the artists, this is essential to any understanding of today’s post-communist society.



Mona Vătămanu (*1968 in Constanţa, RO) and Florin Tudor (born 1974 in Geneva, CH) live and work in Bucharest.


Catalogue

MONA VĂTĂMANU & FLORIN TUDOR 32 pages, dimension: 23 x 31 cm, ca. 45 color illustrations With an essay by Adam Szymczyk and an interview with Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor by Jeanette Pacher Secession 2009, ISBN 978-3-902592-25-5 ___________________ available in the shop

Selected solo shows
2009 All Power to the Imagination!, Secession, Vienna; Surplus Value, BAK - basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht; Dissolving Absolute Structures, Kunstverein Ludwigsburg, Ludwigsburg; 2008 Appointment with History, Lombard-Freid Projects, New York; August, Andreiana Mihail Gallery, Bucharest; Living Units, Mercer Union, Toronto; 2007 August, Play Gallery, Berlin; 2006 Re-animating the City, Cooper Gallery, Dundee; 2005 Unitati de locuit, CIAC, Bucharest; 2004 Orase de Consum, Galeria Vector, Iaşi; Consuming the City, Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Innsbruck; 2003 Living Units, Project Room, Ludwig Museum, Budapest.

Selected group shows
2009 Liquid Times, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster; Cultural Memories / Récits Parallèles, Galerie Insitu Fabienne Leclerc, Paris; Pièces de résistance: Forms of Resistance in Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum Thun, Thun; Europe: In Between Document and Fiction, Centrul National al Dansului, Bucharest; Nothing is worth more than this day, Andreiana Mihail Gallery, Bucharest; Dada East? Contextes roumains du Dadaisme, Musée des Beaux-Arts Tourcoing, Lille; Blind Spots, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna; Sounds and Visions, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; 2008 5th Berlin Biennale, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; 6th Gyumri Biennial, Transformation of History or Parallel Histories, Gyumri; Art as Gift, Periferic Biennial 8, Iaşi; Like an Attali Report, but different. On fiction and political imagination, Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; Since we last spoke about monuments, Stroom den Haag, The Hague; Another City, Another Life, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Communism never happened, Pavillon de Normandie, Caen; 2007 52nd Biennale di Venezia, Rumanian Pavilion: Low-Budget Monuments; The Building Show, Exit Art Gallery, New York; Prague Biennale 3, Der Prozess, Collective memory and social history; Coded Cinema, SMART Project Space, Amsterdam; Transforming Memory. The Politics of Images, 24 Nadezda Petrovic Memorial, Cacak; 2006 How to Do Things? - In the Middle of (No)where, Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien, Berlin; Urban Contact Zone, sharing areas - using places, Westwerk, Hamburg; Fair:Play, Play Gallery, Berlin; Accidentes, Associação Cultural Videobrasil, São Paulo.



The Secession is supported by:
Erste Bank – Partner of the Secession
Wien Kultur
Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur
Friends of the Secession

Cooperation-, Media partners, Non-cash benefit:
Der Standard
Ö1 Club
Silver Server
hs art service austria GmbH
Trumer Privatbrauerei
VIENNA ART WEEK 2009

MARC CAMILLE CHAIMOWICZ     MICHAEL ASHKIN

EXHIBITION PROGRAM 2009

For further information and photographic material please contact:
 
Urte Schmitt-Ulms
Secession, Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
Tel: +43-1-5875307-21, Fax: +43-1-5875307-34
presse@secession.at