Artist Roberta Curcă will hold a performance of the artwork “Full of Merit, Yet Poetical / Self-Destructive Traces”.
Departure – Saturday, August 5, 2023, at 09.00 AM, from 8 Floare Street (Militari area) to University Square (arrival).
- This performance is the 2nd of this artwork – the 1st one being in Timișoara, on July 14, by artist Ana Maria Szöllösi.
- This artwork is part of the public art stage, the last component of Mentoring and Production for Emerging Artists programme.
- Previous stages: mentoring and the exhibition Back to Where It All Began, now available online.
- The project is financed with the support of EEA Grants 2014-2021 within the RO CULTURA
The people of Bucharest are invited, on Saturday, August 5, 2023, at 09.00 AM, to join artist Roberta Curcă in the performance of “Full of Merit, Yet Poetical / Self-Destructive Traces”. The performance consists of a chalk ball that will be rolled around the city by the artist until it disintegrates. The trace of the performance remains as an ephemeral artwork that was influenced by the context and the pathway conditions and serves as a silent witness of the ways in which we inhabit public spaces.
At 9.00 AM, the artist will start the chalk ball route, from 18 Floare Rosie Street (Militari district), then, accompanied by the public, she will run the ball towards Gorjului Square, Lujerului Square, Politehnica, Botanical Garden, Eroilor, Cișmigiu. University Square is the final destination. People eager to spend their morning differently than usually have the opportunity to join the artist at any point on the afore-mentioned route, which we estimate will last for 3 hours.
Roberta Curcă: “Especially in a city large like Bucharest, existing somewhere outside the central area can make your neighbourhood seem disconnected from the cultural sphere. By activating this area, specifically Military Neighbourhood, and starting the performance where I live and work, I hope to connect this space to the city through this artistic gesture. The main aim of our performance is to highlight ordinary everyday routes and add a playful twist to how we experience the urban environment.”
“Full of Merit, Yet Poetical / Self-Destructive Traces” is probably the most relevant example that Accelerator succeeded in creating a community of artists with shared interests, as it represents a fruitful collaboration between artists Roberta Curcă, Lucia Ghegu and Ana Maria Szöllösi, with the significant contribution of Maria Mandea in terms of ideas and concept.
Born in Craiova, Roberta Curcă is a Bucharest-based artist working with drawing, photography, objects, and artist books. In her work, she employs a systematic investigation into various types of structures or images that describe or subvert the human’s relationship to the built or natural world and the psychological, social, political or ecological implications of this relationship. She often explores the relationship between two-dimensional and three-dimensional states, order and chance, intent and impact, the human and the non-human. She has a BA and an MA in Drawing from the National University of Arts in Bucharest and is currently working on a Ph.D. in cultural studies at the Center for Excellency in Image Study.
The public art projects of Accelerator were integrated under the umbrella of the concept “The Artist, the Work and Everyone Who Comes to It”, by Tevž Logar, curator of the Back to Where It All Began exhibition on view at Gaep earlier this year.
“If history taught us anything it is that art can do many things and it is often stretched between two opposite poles, and this is what gives it a real potential. It can bring pleasure but in the same breath it can also cause pain. It can be figurative or it can be abstract. It can occupy or empty our minds. And because of that it has undergone many conceptual and formal transformations, and this testifies to the fact that art invariably responds to the challenges of our everyday lives even before the transformative effect on society becomes clear. For this very reason, art is indispensable when it comes to shaping and understanding life and things that surround us, and that is why the project The Artist, The Work And Everyone Who Comes To It is probably the most sincere evidence of that“– Logar stated.
Bucharest is the second location of this artwork performance; the first city was Timișoara and Cluj-Napoca will follow soon.
Financed with the support of EEA Grants 2014-2021 within the RO CULTURA Programme and implemented by Asociația Culturală Eastwards Prospectus, in partnership with Gaep Gallery in Bucharest and i8 Gallery in Reykjavik, Iceland, Accelerator is the first and the most complex program for emerging artists who proposes a strategic approach on their artistic careers.
Accelerator covers 3 dimensions: know-how and expertise by national and international contemporary art professionals, that was provided in last year’s mentorship stage, resources for producing new artworks and presentation opportunities. The Exhibition at Gaep, doubled by the online viewing room was the first said space. The other ones are the public art projects we are presenting in Bucharest, Timișoara, Constanța, Cluj-Napoca and Oltenița.
Founded over 7 ago, Asociația Culturală Eastwards Prospectus (ACEP), aims, through Accelerator, to support emerging artists in the development of their career path by offering them learning opportunities inspired from international education approaches and practices. In addition, ACEP aims to deepen its efforts of training and developing new audiences by the means of activities organised in Bucharest and country-wide, both online and offline. If the public takes part in them, it will get to understand and connect to contemporary art. Thus, art contributes to individual and collective progress – fulfilling its well-known role from older ages – to foster the evolution of the society.
The EEA Grants represent the contribution of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway towards the reduction of economic and social disparities in Europe and towards strengthening the bilateral relations between the donor countries and the 15 EU countries in Central and Southern Europe and the Baltics. The three donor countries cooperate closely with the EU through the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA). The donors have provided €3.3 billion through consecutive grant schemes between 1994 and 2014. For the period 2014-2021, the EEA Grants amount to €1.55 billion. More information is available on www.eeagrants.org and www.eeagrants.ro.
RO-CULTURE Programme is implemented in Romania by the Ministry of Culture through the Project Management Unit. The Programme aims at strengthening social and economic development through cultural cooperation, cultural entrepreneurship and cultural heritage management. The total budget amounts to almost 34 million EUR. For more details access: www.ro-cultura.ro.