http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=11672
The Romanian National Museum of Contemporary Art has opened in a wing of the vast building Romania's new National Museum of Contemporary Art has opened to the public in Wing E4 of the vast Palace of the Parliament, popularly referred to as "Ceausescu's Palace". At 270 by 244 metres the building is the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon). It was built by Nicolae Ceausescu, dictator of Romania from 1965 until his public execution in 1989. Construction began in 1984, but the massive structure was never completed. To clear land for it, Ceausescu bulldozed 7,000 homes and 26 churches in southern Bucharest and relocated over 70,000 people to the outskirts of the city. Utterly kitsch in its anachronistic dictatorial neo-baroque style, the palace Ceausescu wanted was never inhabited by him or his government; after the 1989 revolution Ceausescu was tried and executed. The palace was abandoned and there was talk of a possible demolition. However, in 1994 it became the site of the new Parliament of Romania. In 1998, the parliament voted to create a Romanian Museum of Contemporary Art and install it in the palace, most of which still lies empty. Mihai Oroveanu, an ex-jobbing photographer, who is now director of the museum, has been a supporter of the project from the beginning. "This museum had a long gestation. It is thanks to the interest of the Prime Minister, Adrian Nastase, himself an art collector, that we obtained a portion of the Palace of the Parliament. Politicians never considered the museum a priority, and I would not say that there is a real cultural policy in Romania, but nevertheless they put money into the project", he told The Art Newspaper. The museum occupies a modest 4% of the gigantic palace. Its interior contrasts sharply with the palace's bombastic exterior: a series of stark white rooms are distributed over four floors. "The part of the palace allocated for the museum was not yet completed, so we finished the construction and got rid of the decorations, to make the space as neutral as possible", explained Mr Oroveanu. He will use the gallery to promote young Romanian artists and also host travelling exhibitions from foreign museums. The opening line-up includes a show of Romanian artists who have made work on the theme of the palace itself; an exhibition of Chinese video artists curated by Swiss-born curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, which travels from the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and an exhibition curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, that includes work by artists such as the South African Kendell Geers and French installation artist Franck Scurti. The latter two shows are sponsored by the French embassy in Bucharest. The museum's board of trustees also reveals strong French support: it includes Mr Bourriaud, and Catherine Millet, the influential French art critic and curator. Mr Oroveanu has no illusions about the new museum's difficult position: "The location of the contemporary art museum inside the Palace of the People is a controversial one, and I am very aware of that. But due to the severe economic situation in Romania it was not possible to build a new museum; we would have had to wait at least 20 years". Dan Perjovschi, a Bucharest-based artist, is among the harshest critics of the new museum. Passionate and disillusioned, he explains: "My generation is ideological. We survived the system. I cannot forget that one quarter of the city of Bucharest was completely demolished to build that palace. It is the visualisation of the ugliest fantasy of a dictator we loathed. For me it is bad enough that the Palace was accepted as a political icon for today. It is like a bad joke. Art is being used again as propaganda. The most suitable thing to do would have been to open a historical museum to display Ceausescu's weird stuff." The opening exhibition, "Romanian artists, and not only, love Ceausescu's Palace!?" (until 25 March), focuses on the controversial building and includes works by Romanian artists, beginning with portraits of Ceausescu from the museum's collection of over 2,400 depictions of the late dictator. By Marina Sorbello -- "Let me, at least, to know that she'll try Then she'll be a true love of mine" www.nuclearinfo.ro [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/DXOolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Sageata Albastra e cea mai mare tzeapa a transportului public! Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/protest-ro/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
