Raw look
If art intends to shift perspectives, this festival points citizens in the right direction, writes Michael Bird
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For visitors coming to
Bucharest, finding
their way
around the city is a
frustrating adventure.
The streets
disguise the location
of their names,
there are no clear maps in
public spaces, classic orientation
points are regularly demolished,
road names change but their
signposts remain, while a visitor
asking for directions will be surrounded
by a group of city-folk pointing
to different routes, waving their
hands and shouting at each other.
So it seems ironic that the subject
of Bucharest’s Third Biennial, curated
by Swedes with an international selection
of artists, should be maps.
Set in five locations around the
city, the aim is to show how maps
generate new realities and how power
bases can exploit them for political
gain.
The works are most effective when
they undermine or question the official vision of a country’s area and
borders. Jan Svenungsson’s ‘Psychomapping
Scandinavia’ shows a map
of the region
which the
artist copies
onto a plain sheet of A4
paper. He then makes a
line drawing of the copy,
with subsequent pictures
acting as the basis for the
next drawing. The map
becomes more distorted
until it emerges as a piece of
paper entirely painted black.
The accuracy needed to form
the intricate lines of fjords, lakes
and islands is reduced to an exuberant
expression that negates its own existence.
Puerto Rican Karlo-Andrei Ibarra
carves out a map of America from
one of the most potent symbols of the
continent, the beefsteak, where it resembles
a filthy mess, as repulsive as
raw meat on a kitchen floor.
On Blvd Nicolae Titulescu opposite
America House, a former bank
has been gutted and now houses
works including a 51 minute slowed
down video of John Lennon’s face by
Yoko Ono. This space is destined to
become Unicredit Tiriac Bank’s ‘contemporary
art space’ this October.
Visitors here can see Mona Hatoum’s
excellent work ‘Bukhara’ (Maroon).
This is a Persian carpet where the
coloured pattern has been ripped out
to create the land masses of the world,
suggesting that deterioration causes
nations to exist.
In the Geology Museum,
Romanian Lia Perjovschi’s
playful ‘Globe - Endless
Collection’ assembles 1,500
objects depicting the world map
such as magazines, pencils and
infl atable globes which
litter glass cabinets
of quartz,
magma and
gypsum.
The irony here
is that stone and
metal pieces from the
earth dwarf the planet
itself.
Bucharest International Biennial for
Contemporary Art
Pavilion Unicredit,
1 Blvd Titulescu
Absolut Gallery inside the Museum of
Geology,
2 Sos Kiseleff
TC Gallery,
63-65 Strada Lipscani
Galeria Simeza, 20 Blvd Magheru
Galeria Orizont,
23A Nicolae Balcescu
Until 21 June
