Dust /The Beginning of the 21st Century

Dust, The Romanian Pavilion the 52nd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2007
Dust, Social Factory: The 10th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, 2014

Dust, 2005-2007. In the filmed performance (Vacaresti, 22'26", 2006), the artists trace, with sticks and string, the outline of the church Vacaresti in Bucharest, demolished by the communist regime in 1986. This symbolic recuperation, based on a performative understanding of the monument, gains resonance in relation to present-day plans to build a commecial mall on the same site. The bags of concrete, dribbling inert dust, function as a historical hourglass between an unclear 'then' and a problematic 'now', pointing at loss and at entropy that architecture 'constructs' while it seeks to embody power, be it political or economic.

The Beginning of the 21st century, installation, The Romanian Pavilion the 52nd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2007

The Beginning of the 21st century, 2007. The house growing inside the pavilion functions as excrescence that consumes space, an inbuilt contradiction, a nonument. It problematizes the relation between the stages of architecture, the tensions these create between them and the contradictory notions of dwelling they stem from. Architecture devouring space and simoultaneously trying to imbue it with meaning - suspended halfway between the two operations, refraining from both. Mihnea Mircan

LOW-BUDGET MONUMENTS The Romanian Pavilion the 52nd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2007 Artists: Victor Man, Cristi Pogacean, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Christoph Buchel & Giovani Carmine Curator: Mihnea Mircan Pavilion commissioner: Mihai Pop – Fundatia Plan B index