History in fragments
Audio-video exhibition curated by Raluca Velisar and Andrei Rus
This exhibition proposal will function as an audio-video installation accompanying the film program „Negotiating History: Cinematic Representations Past & Present”, scheduled to run in the same period in CINEMA GALERIES, Brussels.
By means of the projections on various types of surfaces (walls, screens or TV sets) we intend to reconstruct Romania’s recent past, with fragments of different kind of materials: from the official propagandistic images, to the home-movies, pre-existing author-documentaries, essays and movies specially created for this occasion.
In this way, the visitors will have the possibility to get into a series of moments – well or less known for the social and political evolution of this country during the 20th century – and, on the other hand, into very different attitudes towards, sometimes, the very same events. The cineastes Radu Jude, Dana Bunescu, Raluca Durbacă, the artists Mona Vătămanu, Florin Tudor and the theory-writers Ana Szel and Gabriela Filippi propose audio-visual works or edited materials, realized specifically for this project.
Additionally to these, short and feature documentaries from and about different periods of time – Bucharest Memories, by Radu Gabrea; Our Holly War, by Ion Cantacuzino; The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s, by Andrei Ujică; The Marshall’s Two Executions, by Radu Jude; The Second Game, by Corneliu Porumboiu; After the Silence, by Vanina Vignal; La revolution dans le boudoir, by Dan Mihălțianu; Dialogue with Ceaușescu, by Ion Grigorescu and After the Revolution, by Laurențiu Calciu – will be projected undivided.
About the curators
Raluca VELISAR is an art historian and a contemporary art curator. She coordinated for more than 10 years the Curatorial Research Department of MNAC (the National Museum of Contemporary Art) and the program MNAClab. She was the curator of conceptual and multimedia art exhibitions, such as Image. Archive (2013), subREAL Retrospect (2013), Mircea Cantor – Q.E.D. (2013), Kinema Ikon retrospect (2005), Liquid Cities – Dan Mihălțianu (2005), etc. Presently she is the Head of the Graphic Arts Department of the National Museum of Art.
Andrei RUS has a PhD in Cinematography and Media and is a university lecturer at the Audiovisual communication department of the National University of Theatre ad Cinematographic Arts, in Bucharest. He founded and coordinated the magazine of cinematographic culture “Film Menu”. He was selector for film festivals, curator and coordinator of various film programs, writer of cinematographic studies and articles. Beginning with 2017 he has been the artistic director of “One World”, the International Festival of documentary Film and Human Rights.
History in Fragments, CINEMA GALERIES, Brussels, opening 8 th of December, 2019