International Biennale for Contemporary Art in Bucharest
Bucharest Biennale will take place during 25th May - 27th June 2006.

The appointed curator for the 2006 edition will be Zsolt Petrányi, director of Kunsthalle Budapest. The theme Zsolt Petrányi proposed for the 2006 edition is “Chaos: Flat Images in The Age Of Confusion”.

“The «confusion» as part of our lives became a metaphor. It symbolizes the calmness of the resignation of «as it is», when what we know and register is nothing but a small sign of our status quo, when we are just what we see. The preliminary selection of the artists wanted to express the overall of the metaphor of «chaos», by opening widely the geographical directions the works are collected from. I must say, the final list is still under consideration”, stated Zsolt Petrányi.

“The Bucharest Biennale will become, in time, as important as the ones from Istanbul or Moscow are. The city of Bucharest deserves to be taken into consideration on the map of international contemporary art, and this show is the one to begin with. The time to break through the isolation of Romania’s capital has finally come, and, moreover it feels the urge to convert the isolation into a challenge for the art world. We are interested in the connection between the creative practice and the social developing, between the local, European and universal contexts. In the same time, we are more than delighted to have Zsolt Petrányi as a curator for the biennale, and I really think his choosing was the best decision to take”, declared Eugen Radescu, the curator of the 2005 edition, and co-director of Bucharest Biennale.

Bucharest Biennale aims to resolve the twofold problems of tradition and modernity, past and present, localism and global village, strives to attain a balanced status between its aesthetic/artistic quality and popularity by overcoming the feeling of estrangement that the general public has toward the contemporary arts.

Bucharest Biennale is a structure able to transform the Bucharest itself into an ongoing workshopcum- field of action, for it seeks a way of breaking the cultural isolation –burdensome heritage of the years of communism, and building a strong partnership between Bucharest – which is more than a city, it is a symbol of how political can be reflected in every aspect of life – and Europe.

The Bucharest Biennale’s goal is to encourage the artistic creativity, to ease the public access to the culture, to disseminate art, to incite to intercultural dialogue and to underline the importance of the knowledge of European end extra-European contemporary cultures.

The official web site of the Bucharest Biennale is www.bucharestbiennale.org

During the Bucharest Biennale, which will take place during the 26th May - 27th June 2006, it will be also organized parallel shows.

The final program of the Bucharest Biennale and the parallel shows will be ready and published in February 2006.

The contemporary art biennale are the most important shows of the kind, and they include the main exposition, debates, conferences and parallel shows (such as other expositions, sound performances, dance performances etc).

The Cultural Association Artphoto, the organizer of [artphoto]festival.bucharest, has taken the decision to transform the contemporary arts festival into an International Contemporary Arts Biennale in Bucharest.

It is to mention that Artphoto is a cultural NGO, editing the contemporary art magazine, worldwidedistributed (www.artphoto.ro).

The success the [artphoto]festival.bucharest recorded determined the need to extend the show and its visibility. The “Bucharest Biennale of Contemporary Art” description has been registered as a trade mark, and same its logo.

The executive team of Bucharest Biennale is:

Curator: Zsolt Petrányi
Co-Directors: Razvan Ion & Eugen Radescu
Project Director: Alexandra Hagiu-Manda
Assistant to the Curator: Claudia Martins
Romanian Assistant to the Curator: Sebastian Negulescu

For interviews with the curator, informations and details, you can contact the press office:
[email protected], or phone at +4 0722 449 002.

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BUCHAREST BIENNALE
The curator - Zsolt Petrányi – has chosen the exhibition spaces and the artists.

Zsolt Petrányi, the curator of Bucharest Biennale 2006, has visited Bucharest on 19th – 23rd of January 2006. His schedule was composed of a press conference, meetings with people in the area of conteporary art, as well as a meeting with Romanian artists.

As a result of visiting Bucharest and the possible exhibition spaces, Zsolt Petranyi has declared: “I am very much interested in placing the exhibition in unconventional spaces, spaces that have not yet been used for exposing contemporay art. This way we can determine the usual art visitors to enter spaces that they usually would not visit, and the ones that are strangers to this domain can now interact with the works of art.”

For this reason, Petrányi has chosen a few spaces: The National Museum of Geology, The Botanical Gardens, The Botanical Museum, The South Shop (a skateboarding store) and The Museum of Romanian Literature.

Zsolt Petrányi has specified that an initial, but not final, selection of the artists has been made. Among the ones that are sure to participate are:

Erik Binder
Rainer Ganahl
Sebastian Moldovan
Ilona Nemeth
Tatsumi Orimoto
Dan Perjovschi
Catalin Rulea
Attila Stark
Aya Tzukioka
Wang Qingsong

The list will be completed in March, during the next visit of the curator to Bucharest.

The Biennale will benefit from a special catalogue - a hybrid between the art magazine PAVILION and the Biennale’s catalogue. This way, the publication will benefit from two channels of distribution: the usual one for a catalogue and the extended one that the magazine uses.

The opening festivity of the Biennale will take place in Bucharest on the 25th of May 2006 in a skateboard park, and will consist of a special performance created on the Biennale’s theme.

Bucharest Biennale is a structure that wishes to transform Bucharest into a field of artistic action, to break the isolation of the culture and to establish a long - term partenership between the Romanian Capital – a city that is a symbol of how politics can be reflected in every aspect of life - and Europe.

Bucharest Biennale also plans to encourage artistic creativity, public access to culture, the dissemination of art, intercultural dialogue and the spreading of knowledge about contemporary European and non – European culture.

The official web-site of the Bucharest Biennale is www.bucharestbiennale.org

Parallel events will also be organised during the Bucharest Biennale, which will take place between the 26th of May – 27th of June 2006.

The complete Programme of the Bucharest Biennale and of the parallel events has been established and will be made public in March 2006.

The contemporary art Biennales are the most important events of this kind; they consist of a central exhibition, debates, conferences and parallel events (exhibitions, sound performances, debates, performance-dance spectacles etc.).

Asociatia Culturala Artphoto (the Artphoto Cultural Association) is the organiser of the Bucharest Biennale. Asociatia Culturala Artphoto is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation, a cultural NGO that edits the PAVILION contemporary art magazine, which is distributed internationally. (www.pavilionmagazine.org).

Eugen Radescu (co-director of the Biennale) wants to thank all the companies and business men that decided to support the Bucharest Biennale, as well as the European Cultural Foundation.

For more information and details you can contact our press bureau (Communication Manager: Mircea Dobre) by e-mail : [email protected] or phone : +40722 224 575.

The executive team of the Bucharest Biennale is:

Curator 2nd Bucharest Biennale: Zsolt Petrányi
Co-Directors: Razvan Ion & Eugen Radescu
Project Director: Alexandra Hagiu-Manda
Communications Manager: Mircea Dobre
Assistants to the Curator: Claudia Martins, Sebastian Negulescu


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This article is published from "Press" on the website :
www.bucharestbiennale.org