and we are happy to share the news,

talk to them about the show,

learn more from the curator Diana Marincu who invited them and made this happen,

and also chit-chat with Alina Cristescu, the founder of Calina, arguably one of the most influential people in arts management today,

in exactly this order.

AK:   you have so many offers to exhibit in quite some countries now;   plus, you just moved Vatra Collective to new location, and it needs much attention, and yet you made time in your jammed schedule to come to  Timisoara and show at Calina gallery?  how come?

S+A:  Because we used to like Calina while we were living in Timisoara a few years ago, and we would’ve liked to have a show here, and now that they invited us we couldn’t miss this opportunity.

AK: what’s the inspiration and the underlying concept of the Golden Hours, the show?

S+A:  Lately we’ve been quite melancholic and preoccupied by subjects related to memories, dreams, time and death, so we made a small collection of diary fragments, fears, hopes, dreams.

And we were also inspired by J.M. Barrie’s

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.

AK:  how do you relate to the passing of time yourselves?  when do you feel it, and when does if fly by?

S+A:  We’re both pretty conscious about it, and it plays an important part in our lives, being a major source of inspiration. We frequently have long sessions of sharing memories from childhood.

AK: looking back, what makes your own collection of golden hours?  mind sharing two or three of those w us?   what happened?  what did you do then?

Aitch: after losing my grandma a few years ago i started working on my memories journal… I was going through a “hate myself for not being there” phase and i felt like all that was left for me to do was remembering as much as possible, writing it down, and sometimes illustrate it. I miss her like crazy…

Saddo:  most of my pieces in the show are about my own fears of death, time passing, losing people I care about.

AK:  how much of the show is the stuff your bring from home, and how much is an improv, a reaction to the space and feeling at the moment?

S+A:  we’ve planned the whole thing pretty well, before arriving to Timisoara this week for the set-up. Diana, the cute curator, helped us with some gallery plans, measurements and photos of the space, and so we were able to figure out how many canvases and wood pieces to bring, plus we also put aside some sexy white walls to paint on.

AK:  what kind of visitors do you look forward to?   what will make it – or break it – as a super show for you guys?

S+A:  we exhibited here first time in a small group show at Carturesti a few years ago, but it’s indeed the first important show, not only in Timisoara, but we feel like it’s our most accomplished exhibition yet, in which we put a great deal of thought, work and soul. We don’t really know what to expect, we feel happy for being here and for having the whole gallery just for ourselves, to arrange it and paint it as we like. And we hope we’ll have all sorts of people visiting, and that they’ll like it.

AK:  Diana, you seem to the head of all (new) evil @ Calina, bringing new type of art, lowbrow, daring, off-the-wall to the space that seems to play it more “serious” before. how come?  where do you come from in this?

DM:  I started the Camera Lucida program here, at  Calina Gallery, with the purpose of encouraging and promoting young artists who work with different media and  for whom the exhibition of their work is not the final stage of the creative process. I don’t think that the exhibition is the only instrument of an art space and the dialog between artists and the public  is very important. I studied for three years in Bucharest, but I was born in Timisoara, so in a way I wanted to come back to my hometown and bring here the people I met there and start a platform of dialog in a way.

The seriousness of exhibitions is a very common “disease” in the art field of Timisoara and I am trying to show the public that there are artists who dear to show work in progress projects full of humor, poetry or even critical thinking. Hanging canvases on walls is not enough to educate a public.  I am very concerned with this educational matter because I used to be a teacher and I know how important it is for young people to see and understand contemporary art.

AK:   as a curator, what informs and drives your choices, and what is the agenda you are trying to shape w your shows?

DM:  My agenda is very simple: I want to show good artists from very different conceptual tendencies and mediums of expression, from photography to installation that have their very articulate and personal view on art and the meeting of art and other fields.

Some of them came to my mind because of their obvious discontent with what the Art Academy has to offer.  The crisis of the art pedagogy is visible, but yet ignored by the authorities.  As a curator, I am too young to say that I have a very strong focus on just one part of the art production, I usually visit galleries as much as I can and try to be informed about everything.

AK:  what attracted you in Saddo & Aitch?  which was the story of you seeing the first piece, then more, and finally reaching out to them?

DM:  I used to be very attentive with what Aitch was doing as a student (she was one year older than me, but her class was next to the studio I used to work in). For her graduate diploma, she made a book of domestic monsters that I found amazingly beautiful, full of sensibility and intelligence.  After that, we met again in Bucharest, at Alert studio, an artist run space where I was working at the time and rediscovered her and Saddo.

AK:  who are the type of people who would resonate with Saddo & Aitch’s work?  what would be the key to the show also having a commercial success?

I think that anybody who has the patience and sensibility to read the whole story. It is an exhibition that has an almost narrative story about memory and identity, social issues and fantastic worlds that needs to be discovered.

It is an exhibition that has an almost narrative story about memory and identity, social issues and fantastic worlds that needs to be discovered.

AK:   what are your expectations of the show?

DM:  I expect a very good show finally, a positive vibe and young people at the opening. I expect a lot of people, really, more than before because of their popularity within young artists.

AK:  how do you usually present Calina gallery to someone who’s never been there?  we’d love a quick (virtual) tour.

AC:  Calina is a private space focused on Romanian contemporary art, run by me, with the help of my team, Reko and Lajos, together with the late Mr Nuţiu, until recently.  The gallery is my mirror;  it represents my discourse on contemporary art and my personal choices, together with the curator.  I think it is important for Timisoara.   The town would be emptier without it.  Its activity is constant and we have managed to create our own constant visitor base.   And I usually invite curators to do their shows here and I don’t “play” the curator, even if sometimes it seems so tempting.

I think it is important for Timisoara.   The town would be emptier without it.

AK:  you’ve been active since 2007;  what has changed, year by year, in the art world, the artists you exhibit and represent, the public and collectors?

AC: The changes come in crescendo rhythm;  I very much wish young people to progress and become the joy and the glory for the gallery. The public is the one we built and targeted from the beginning.   And the collectors need more courage and advisory.

AK: what is the selection process you apply to the artists whom you offer your space?  what you notice first, what you look for, and what makes a difference between a go and a no?

AC:  The selection process is also one that needed to be built in time. I tend to choose things by instinct and impulse, and I also collaborate a lot with curators, and listen to their advice.  After five years of activity, I think I can afford the courage of choices.

AK:  three things we hear often:  “1) why go to gallery?  I have any art at the tips of my fingers (=web).  2) galleries are cold, unfriendly, high-nosed places for insiders, mainly, they are just not welcoming. and 3) who buys this?  I would never want to exhibit this in my living room.” what do you reply to those?

AC:   My first reaction is to say that visual culture is really a need. But it can be easily read as snobbish.   So I usually tell people that, no matter what feelings and anxieties contemporary art gives them, it is a good start to just go and see shows and search and discover whatever matches their taste. You don’t have to like everything, it would be odd;   there are things I enjoy, but I would never take home with me.

AK:  one of our favorite reads, Monocle, likes to play with “a perfect [something]” idea. they had a perfect hotel, a perfect air carrier, and many more.  what’s a perfect gallery?  where are you on this path?

AC:  It depends on what you have chosen and where you are.  In this moment, I am where I always wanted to be.

Golden Hours opens Monday, and here’s a handy Facebook link.

ladies and gentlemen, join us in a

we were happy to recieve quite some interest in our humble announcement of super interns wanted, and after quite some time in interviews and tests we got ourselves a Super Bogdan.

“living the life since 1988 like no other”, civilian name Bogdan Catalin Cazacioc, he’s done quite lots of stuff already.  and we fall for people who do.

first we took a quick glance into his BANII DE TIGARI PE FILME tumblr (which naturally extended into a longer examination),

second we noticed he comes armed and ready  (to compliment your standard Photoshop and Illustrator, he flirts heavy with Adobe Premiere, After Effects and boasts some magic with HTML and CSS – which we’ll put to good use, you bet),

third, in flesh, he appeared to be a cool skinny chap with great energy about him (so that 5 mins into our first talk we knew he’s in),

and last, the guy is a J Dilla fanatic, crazy about beats and rhymes (and fools are those who excluded this kind of facts from their CVs).

AK:  Super Bogdan, what’s your super power?

SB: being able to add background music to scenes that are currently going on the record of time.

AK: why a page?

SB:  i dig what you guys are doing and i want to play too.

AK:  what do you bring?

SB:  besides my camera of course, i’m here with some of my friends – passion, ideas and sleepless nights.

AK: what’s on your radar now? what’s hot?

SB:  nowadays i try to focus on my personal and school projects, but like any other young and restless individual i seem to have a NEED to experiment with a great deal of things.

AK: your photo weapon of choice?

SB:  well, my main choce is shooting analog. along the years i’ve used some of the most common slrs, like Canon FTb QL, Canon AE-1 and even a point and shoot, Yashica T4. now i’m using a Canon T90, those japanese photojurnalists were right when they called it “the tank”. since our first encounter, photography and i have become great pals. we’re always there for each other :) i enjoy analog photography, but i use dslrs too.

AK: last track listened?

SB: jaylib – the message

AK: movie you wait for impatiently?

SB: i’m always up for how high 2, but that will never happen – just like chappelle’s third season. if i had to pick one movie that i’m looking forward i’d have to go with The Dark Knight Rises.

AK: ill-est rhyme?

SB: this is a tough one. i’d have to give praise to biggie’s:
In a sec I throw the tec to your fuckin neck
Everybody hit the deck, Biggie bout to get some rep!

AK: Barna spits quite some white rhyme recently, can you battle him back into prose?

SB: be sure about that. i bring da ruckus!

AK: welcome, man.

SB: thank you for having me :)

Super Bogdan gets busy as of today, as our photo and design contributor.   Here’s a taster of what’s to come, with Bogdan’s comments:

SB:  two groups of stray dogs fighting for territory.

SB: friendly face predator chillin in the park/box.

SB:  here you have the visual proof that wu-tang clan was and will always be an inspiration for people around the world. shot taken in Obor.

SB: another sighting of the eagle in a residential area in Bucharest.

SB:  live music used to make people boogie and often made them throw crazy moves on the dancefloor. nowadays everybody wants to record emotions. i ended up having burial on film.

SB:  here you have that rich fat bastard doing his job.

SB:  this came out better than i expected. hint: let some sun into your life.

SB: a beautiful scene in one of Madrid’s parks last summer.

SB:  left outside during the holidays. the life cycle of the christmas tree.

SB: begger by day, afro samurai by night. shot in Madrid.

SB: summer time in the Tineretului Park, a big series as you can see below:

SB: the visual story of a young and troubled woman living her life in the big city.

SB: making a living in the street, a series portraying jobs around the city. this is next to a non stop super market in Bucharest.

SB:  early morning and yawning shooting a beautiful girl with a dslr. best shot of the day.

SB:  waiting for the train back home, making the most of the rest of the time.

if you got what it takes, it’s never late to write us at guys@apage.ro.

Catching Sonia Micu for a camera experiment was not easy.

She’s always on the move, as of recent – in her role as regional brand manager on one of your most loved brands (hint for Ro readers:  “bing-bang”) she travels A LOT all over Europe;   23 countries, to be exact.

Must be fun, no?   Let me disillusion.  It’s grueling, exhausting, and involves way more airport and taxi and hotel and conference room time than site-seeing and sipping lattes in local coffee shops.

And yet Sonia, somehow, someway, makes it look effortless.   I guess this is one of her key qualities – with all responsibility on her shoulders, even when things get messy, she elegantly and calmly steers things through.

Super-organized and focused, currently indulging Churchill’s biography, in her mid-twenties Sonia is your happy case of an over-achiever, when all that early corporate success didn’t take away not even a bit of her jollity, curiosity and touch with the real world out there.

(And no, I don’t only mean her collections of Elles and Vogues.  :P).

Here’s her own comment to the on-the-go 19-photo album (one short of 20, our brief, but that’s also telling of brevity and concision in delivering just enough):

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a camera is a visual anthropological project at a page, when we pass an identity-stripped photo camera to particular people to take 20 random snaps in 24 hours and then post these 20 pictures unaltered,  all in the same format, with a date&time stamp, as an album of captured moments of time, space and lives of project participants.

AK:  OK, OK, we need to bring some clarity to the title of this article, so let’s start with introductions.   First, who is Nicu ‘Kitra’, who is Titi, what is Eldercut and who are Sando and Bucur?

Nicu Duta:  Nicu is me (smiles), a toy designer, illustrator and art director.  I am also known as Kitra.

Nicu ‘Kitra’ met Titi (smiles again) 5 years ago, at the time both were students at [Romanian] National Arts University.   Titi became my best friend and fellow toy designer, it’s just that his focus is on sculpture, so he’s freelancing and experimenting with shapes and forms as much as he possibly can.

Together we launched Eldercut, the first (and only) brand of art toys from Romania, three years ago.

Sando is our first toy, which we presented to the world @ MNAC back in 2009.  You can either buy it blank, and and customize yourself, or you can buy a unique Sando which has been created in a collaboration with one of many Romanian artists.

Now, if Sando was strongly inspired by classic toy and Lego and Duplo shapes, Bucur is his youngest brother, our second toy, a more experimental shape, combining organic and geometric elements.  Bucur is more daring, in a sense.

AK:  What led to you guys creating Sando and Bucur?

ND:  Three years ago we were just trying things, we wanted to do stuff, not to waste time, let it go in vain.   Slowly, by doing and studying, our tastes and analysis matured, so we developed a deeper, more personal look at the phenomenon of the art toys, something we are truly fascinated by.

AK:  The culture of art toys in Romania is its infancy, and I personally know extremely few people who are into this and collect toys – guys like Yvat or Paramon.  How do you rate the knowledge and interest level of the people you get to interact with?

ND:  It is true, in Romania there are very few guys who really know and appreciate art toy;   from what I know, Ioana Slaniceanu is the biggest and craziest toy aficionado at this moment – a glimpse below.  Now, I think that what we do really fuels this interest, it just takes time, it’s normal;  we need to only stay patient and let all our work and energy produce the crops.

AK:   You guys do quite some heavy-lifting in promoting the phenomenon, from work sessions with artists to some more somewhat educational and broader events.  What changes do you notice through the months that go by? 

ND:   Well, comparing to when we started, you can really see a progress.   Like when we talk to someone about a new exhibition, we don’t need to start from zero in explaining what art toys are about.  We are happy to see people understand and buy an artist Sando, or a new Bucur, and then there’s really an interest coming from abroad, looking at the toys as an art object investment.  That justifies our work.   We are happy.  We are dreaming.

AK:  How do you select the artists to collaborate with?

ND:  We are very open in that regard;  we look around for portfolios, we see who will resonate with the medium of toy, we imagine the outcomes, and we just reach out to them.

AK:  A year ago you guys opened Vatra collective, in the formula Aitch+Kitra+Noper+Saddo+Sinboy.   How did this experience turn out for you?

ND:   Titi and I we were very much into this space, so that all of us we can curate our own exhibitions, show our stuff, run workshops, etc.  It was an experiment, a challenge, to combine tastes and opinions of all of us into something constructive, conceptually new, and we all enjoyed it.

AK:  And now this Friday, on May 4th you move Vatra to a new location, very close to Old Center of Bucharest, on Mavrogheni 10, in the concentrated formula of Aitch+Saddo+Kitra, and you’ll also be sharing space with guys from Atelierul de Print.  How is new Vatra different to old Vatra?

ND:  The new location is warmer, somehow;  we really look forward to being there with Saddo and Aitch!   We kinda feel it more as a a gallery / shop, so it’s more defined as a space.  Plus, the street and neighbors are… particular, and it adds to the contrast and experience of being there.  We look forward, as Romanians say, “Toate bune si frumoase” (EN=all nice and flowery).

AK:  And the opening show is ‘Hello, Bucur’.   What should we expect?

ND:  We hope people will leave with something, and not necessarily a physical object, but an experience, even a visual one, with something to tell to others the second day. ‘Hello, Bucur’ is a “building block” event of what the art toy phenomenon will become in Romania, and we really welcome everyone to come see a bunch of awesome artists contributing their designs – scroll down for a preview.

AK:  And after the show, in the months to come, what’s next?

ND:  After the show more exhibitions come;  we are really impatient to sign up for Pictoplasma 2013, to take part in ToyCon UK (first worldwide designer toy convention in Europe) and to have some super cold beer – what’s up with the hot weather these days, man?!

‘Hello, Bucur’ opens this Friday, May 10, at new Vatra, at 10 Mavrogheni str., Bucharest, and presents Bucur toys customized by the following artists SASHA DARIA / SADDO / NOPER / AITCH / MATEI BRANEA / KITRĂ / ALEXANDRA ALBU / MIRCEA POP / ANDREI ROBU / PREN / PISICA PATRATĂ / GIORGE ROMAN / ADRIAN MOISE / MĂDĂLINA ANDRONIC / AGNES LUKACS

some tasters

by Aitch

by Saddo

by Andrei Robu

work in progress by Alexandra Albu

by Madalina Andronic

by Agnes Lukacs

work in progress by Kitra

come, come, he says!

UPDATE of May 7:  photo-report of the launch event is here

more of our sitdowns are here, for your leisure time.

‘Quantified pure existentials’ are sentences (e.g., ‘Some things do not exist’) which meet these conditions: (i) the verb EXIST is contained in, and is, apart from quantificational BE, the only full (as against auxiliary) verb in the sentence; (ii) no (other) logical predicate features in the sentence; (iii) no name or other sub-sentential referring expression features in  the  sentence;  (iv)  the  sentence  contains  a  quantifier  that  is  not  an  occurrence of EXIST. Colin McGinn and Rod Girle have alleged that standard first-order logic cannot adequately deal with some such existentials. The article defends the view that it can. {READ MORE}

tgif ergo cogito smh. when you’re done and your mind hurts, you should know that there’s a new artsy fartsy, real-housewives-of-the-sex-and-the-city tv show out there. it’s carrie bradshaw meets miranda july. it’s called girls and it’s part of a new enthusiastic wave of performers with the lead of lena dunham. well, as she said, she’s a voice of a generation, but somehow three days from the hbo premiere everyone is hooked on the race issue. it’s a story of white privileged girls, so where’s the black-or-at-least-latino token, someone to pull of the racy jokes, to spin the correctness. the black radio character. i don’t think the show’s that good so the only thing left to talk about is the lack of black. please, let’s talk of dunham’s sex life.

anyway, i’m not a huge fan of wasp daughters but the show also stars zosia mamet, daughter of david mamet, so maybe i’ll just watch it for a while, since i’ve quit mad men. why? because i’m feeling like a necrophiliac when i’m watching it. it’s fucking vicarious. it’s the tv version of lana del ray.

have a great weekend,

this is the focus of our new section, called “a method”.

how do certain people put out such an awesome product out, make things happen, bring ideas to live?  over and over again?  what is their way of doing things, the path they go through, the pattern of their efforts, the daily grind, the tools and habitat, the pivotal points, the discipline and the purposeful chaos? …

it’s the process we’re interested in, the method in its original sense of Greek μέθοδος “the way through”, a systematic totality of the steps they take which are necessary to complete a task or reach a goal;  and even to the sense of “a mode of comprehending the truth”.

we will ask a variety of remarkable people about it – or will find methods around us, in stuff we read or see, and edit it into posts -  their method becoming our inspiration, not the other way around.

Quick test:  this young woman on the bicycle is

A) an art director and photographer

B) a small shop owner

C) a senior java developer

D) or an event organizer?

Hm?

Nata Rebeja is (C), and yet could easily be any of these, or more, all in one.    She beats your every stereotype of what makes a programmer, especially one who’s worked for 8+ yrs for the likes of BetBrain and IBM.   Respectively, she confirms, her focus is more on the experience and satisfaction of her end customer VS the craft perfection of her code lines.  Taking coding to the level of art, she says;  and judging by how aware and plugged in Nata is with the world around her, you nod your head with understanding.

Little chap?  He’s Luca, who develops into a super cute “xerox” copy of his upbeat and curious parents.

Facebook-free, Nata admits a strong dependency on socializing, for real, over a tea;  and with the view like this, Nata, Luca, Dumitru, this is my RSVP  ;)

Now, to the quote and the album:

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a camera is a visual anthropological project at a page, when we pass an identity-stripped photo camera to particular people to take 20 random snaps in 24 hours and then post these 20 pictures unaltered,  all in the same format, with a date&time stamp, as an album of captured moments of time, space and lives of project participants.

and you would thing that in an all-white-christia-phonetic language spelling would not be an issue. well, here’s what i got. my five letter name.

anyway, spelling aside, i feel so much bond with starbucks now, fuck discounts for excessive consumption, say my name. thing is we are a suspicious nation. in the queue in front of me, eyebrows were raised at the baristas. if you ask for my name, i must feel i did something wrong.

i went again the next day, no names where asked, the sound of coffee and silent baristas. all went smooth and venti. an old killer bee once told me a tune:

spelling bees
have one strike policys.

it’s been two years since marina abramovic‘s the artist is present ran at moma. but you know how it is, after such retrospectives. things need to settle down. the brain needs time to process. the gut needs time to grow. the dvd needs to come out (in theaters july 6). the word needs to travel. the mouth needs to share. controversy needs to pass. and by dali, abramovic is not new to controversy and shock and control. so much control. i often found myself thinking what i would do in various moments of her, let’s just stick with -ahem- art. i soon found the courage for a fictional cut, bruise and finger, but that’s just a projection of my better half. i actually imagined feeling paralyzed and helpless.

so after all this remembrance-of-the-documentary-of-the-retrospective-of-her-dominance i remained with one trauma: the rest energy performance. i could not do it. i could not do it in my mind. could not even think about letting go of the arrow. and in my mind, to be able to imagine something i need to be able to also imagine the contrary. i need the pressure of what would happen if failure occurred. and i could not go there. mind freeze. i couldn’t imagine letting go of that arrow, therefore never holding it in the first place. done in 1980, this is what marina said about her experience afterwords, which i really don’t care about, because folks, my virtual experience portraying-ulay-in-my-mind is far more fucked up and important to me. a while after this failure of releasing the arrow a phantom limb pain (watch house, they also talk about marina) occurred. my hand remained clutched fiercely to the arrow. i had to do something to see this through and you know what they say, if it’s on paper it must be true. so here i am, holding the arrow in this drawing, so that i can assure myself that i can do it by seeing myself doing it. yes indeed, check mate.

this performance is about trust. so much trust and faith that we can rarely even imagine it. i hope i can let go one day. until then, if you see me, my face is angry because i am forever holding her arrow.

illustration by aidos kurkimov

At a page, we are lucrative two, and we like to surround ourselves with people just as crazy as we are with getting a good product out.

Right now we are looking for an intern (or two):    an energetic young gun with at least 4 hrs per day to dedicate to uploading and editing new articles to the website, researching fast and furious, processing tons of images, creating our newsletter, helping us set up and run our social media outlets, outreaching to tons of people in Romania and beyond for contributions and collaborations, assisting in interviews, shootings and post-production processes, and even pitch his/her articles and ideas as we grow this baby strong.

Flirts with WordPress, Tumblr, Twitter, Photoshop, Premiere and the likes are an advantage.    Or at least a commitment to learn any of the above in 48 hrs, if needed.

Good English is a must;  and ideally conversational html and CSS, too.

Internship is in Bucharest,  3 months and we cover all expenses related to comms and commute to get the work done.

Deadline for sending your resume + intention letter to guys@apage.ro is April 13, sunset.

Tx for spreading the word.