1

ARTISSIMA 3rd-5th November 2017 Dialogues Section | No. 13, Dark-Blue 3rd-5th November 2017 Preview on 2nd November 2017 Viewfinder - Looking through the both sides of the lens Artists: Olivia Mihălțianu, Aurora Király Curatorial presentation by Cristina Stoenescu

Aurora Király, Melancholia_Solitude, 1998 Stuttgart, vintage b/w photograph, 20 x 30 cm Concept Presentation

Viewfinder - Looking through the both sides of the lens

Anca Poterașu Gallery is delighted to present the works of two Romanian women artists, Olivia

Mihălțianu (1981) and Aurora Király (1970), in a dialogue on memory, iconic imagery and art

history through film and photography. The artists belong to different generations, traversing a

period of time in which these media underwent technological changes and paradigm shifts,

especially on the post-communist Romanian art scene. Both Olivia Mihălțianu and Aurora Király

use mixed media to further expand and reflect on the recorded image.

2

The concept for the present show departs from two series of works, Film-métrage (Olivia

Mihălțianu, 1996 – 2009) and Viewfinder & Viewfinder Mock-up (Aurora Király, 1998 – 2017).

The series showcase two complementing takes on the contemporary art scene in Romania.

While Aurora Király uses collage and drawing to further expand her reflection on the

photographic imagery, Olivia Mihălțianu creates permutations of film, photographical techniques

and objects to depict the endless possibilities of how the image can manifest.

In order to expand on the topic, we will briefly present and trace the artistic motivations behind

the two main exhibited series. For the past decade, Olivia Mihălțianu has developed long-term

conceptual projects referring to themes such as nowadays image consumption, self-expression

or power-shifts in various social-political contexts. She exhibited in important international

institutions and event, such as Brukenthal Museum Sibiu (2008), Secession, Vienna (2010),

Kunsthalle Krems (2013), 55th Venice Biennale, Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic

Research, Venice (2013). Her series of works were developed in sought-for international

residency programms, at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France; AIR Krems, Austria or

KulturKontakt, Vienna, Austria, to name a few. To begin with, Persona (2006 – 2007) is a

photographic project that anticipated the selfie mania we came to know today, while Anyone But

Me, Anywhere But Here (2008 – 2009) is inspired by the aesthetics of the European cinema in

relation with fashion couture and holiday culture from the late 1950s to recent times. During

2011 – 2013 Olivia Mihălțianu developed the W*EASTERN series, a Super 8 film trilogy, based

on Spaghetti Western aesthetics, ironically dealing with the recent developments established on

the international art scene - the constant reconfiguration of the power-interrelationship between

artists - curators - and institutions, seen as a catalyst for a “New Socio-Economic Cultural

Environment”. Reflecting on the freedom of acting, thinking and expression, which includes

among others, the freedom of women smoking in public, as a historic act and a sign of

emancipation, Smoking Room (2010 – 2017), is a highly aesthetic project, that goes far beyond

political correctness and nowadays social conventions. Furthering on the current woman-artist's

position and practice, the series WKW, Winyan Kipanpi Win | The Woman Who Was Waited For

was developed during 2013 – 2015. One of Olivia Mihălțianu's lengthiest projects is Film

métrage¸ a series of works developed in the last two decades referring to the physical body of

the film material, as well as to the immaterial aspect of the moving image and the appetite of our

society for producing endless supply of footage and imagery.

In 1996, in her first year of high-school, Olivia Mihălțianu made herself a dress out of 35mm film

footage. Twenty years later, the art-object entitled Film métrage, Robe de soirée was exhibited

at the Knoll Gallerie (Homage - Ideal or Pattern?, 2016). In the words of curator Edit Sasváriat:

"Mihălțianu's work can be understood as a homage to her younger self […]. This was the first

time she worked with film, and she was working with the physical aspect of the film rather than

its content. This was the time of the beginning of the decline for analogue film and the rise of the

digital world. As she says it was perhaps a glimpse into her future as in her work today she is

constantly referring to cinematography and costume; working in film, video, photography and

exploring the meaning of various analogue and digital techniques."

During the same time, twenty years ago, Aurora Király, was a recent graduate from the

University of Arts. During the second half of the ’90s she began working on a series of black and

white photographs which she printed herself in the darkroom. They added up to a collection of

personal moments, private spaces, self-portraits, charged with art history references and

versatile in the b/w photographic techniques. This is especially important since the status of

3

photography and video-art had not yet gained sufficient recognition on the Romanian art scene

at the time (Aurora Kiraly’s background is in Painting, as the photo-video department at the

National University of Arts from Bucharest was founded only in 1995.)

For the following decade, Aurora Király devoted herself to promoting emergent artists as a

curator at Galeria Noua and as a teacher at the Department of Photography and Dynamic Image

at the National University of Arts, Bucharest since 2007. This experience made her re-evaluate

her artistic activity from the 1990s and the 2000s and generated new projects. Her most recent

works, the Viewfinder series, question the sources that an artist may explore for choosing a

subject and the modality through which the said artist approaches context in recent history and

in art history.

The Artissima, Torino 2017 exhibition in the Dialogues section would be the first time that the

two artists exhibit together. They were presented only once before in the same group exhibition

in 2013, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, "Good Girls" – a show presenting a wider

perspective on female artists in the contemporary art world, curated by Bojana Pejić (Berlin) and

Co-Curator Olivia Nițiș (Bucharest). Since then, Aurora Király and Olivia Mihălțianu further

expanded their artistic approach, building a complex set of references and methodologies of

artistic analysis in photography and video art. Their endeavour makes for a fruitful conversation

on the shifting systems of reference in contemporary photography and video art and the

“patterns” that the East European art scene has been adopting for the past decades.

The following proposed artworks show how the two artists use different techniques to further

enhance, emulate and reveal the image forming in film and photography. Starting from the

recorded image, other media are brought into play, exposing the raw connection between

techniques such as drawing, collage, or cyanotype photography and photo-video artistic

practices. In both their works, there is a matter of selection, of looking through the viewfinder and

challenging the public to select and to rethink that which is framed.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Aurora Király (b. 1970) chooses for her projects a unique frequency of communication with the

world. Language as art alternates with the homogenous rhetoric of the modern information

system and in-between these plans there is a subtle transfer of substance. The domestic

intimacy of writing, the formal elegance of photography and a special light always tell a good

story. Layers of emotion and consultancy reiterate real life.

From the long history of abstract avant-garde, Aurora Király takes and inevitably connects art

with knowledge. Throughout the years, the activity of Aurora Király has surveyed the field of

contemporary art from various perspectives. During the 1990s and the 2000s, her projects

explored the capacity of photography to record the quotidian, by combining auto-referential

fragments with documentary aspects of day-to-day life. Her black and white photographs as well

as the ones in colour, are focused on details that are usually overlooked, "embedding" personal

moments, for wanting to preserve these fragments, to understand them and to reflect on her

existence.

Since 2007 she has taught at the Department of Photography and Dynamic Image, at the

Bucharest National University of Arts, an experience that has made her re-evaluate her artistic

activity and to return with new, mature and profound projects. Her most recent works question

the sources that an artist may explore for choosing a subject and the modality through which the

4

said artist approaches context / recent history / art history. The influence of international

tendencies and of the art market on art production, the works and the practices of artists who

"listen to" and acknowledge their own "voice" represent a few of the issues of interest for Aurora

Király at the moment.

Solo shows: 2017 - Constructed Geometries: space, time, memory, Anca Poterașu Gallery

Bucharest; 2016 - Reality check, Calina Gallery, Timișoara; 2015 - Cut & Paste Histories, Alert

studio, Bucharest; 2003 Duet, Galeria din cetate, Târgu Mureş; 2000 - Feminine Archeology,

The International Centre for Contemporary Art, Bucharest; 2000 - Melancholia, Sindan Cultural

Centre, Cluj; 2000 - Melancholia, Fotogaleria GAD, The National Theatre 3/4, Bucharest; 1999 -

Untitled, The International Centre for Contemporary Art, Bucharest. Selected group shows:

2017 - Life – A User's Manual, Art Encounters Contemporary Arts Biennial, Timișoara and Arad;

2016 - Fără pensule, Atelier030202 Bucharest; 2016 - Ex Future, Arcub-Hanul Gabroveni,

Bucharest; 2016 - Our History About Others. A City Seen Through Four Lenses, within NAG#10,

Scena9, Bucharest; 2016 - Brain Tatoo – A Map of Obsessions, The Romanian Cultural Institute

Lisbon; 2016 – Girls with Ideas [Boys and paintings], Lateral ArtSpace – Paintbrush Factory,

Cluj; 2014 - WHAT ABOUT Y[OUR] MEMORY, The National Museum for Contemporary Art,

Bucharest 2014; 2013 - Eu, En, Ich II – Miths, Victoria Art Center, Bucharest; 2014 -

Contemporary Art Ruhr, Essen, Germany; 2004 - Good Girls – Memory, Desire, National

Museum of Contemporary Arts, Bucharest; 2002 - Preview, Kalinderu Medialab, Bucharest;

2002 - RDV roumaine – l’espace En Cours, Paris, France; 2001 - Woman’s room / Woman’s

view, Paromlin Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia; 2001 Foto Documente, Galeria Nouă, Bucharest; 2001

- The Dream of My Life, National Art Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria; 2000 - In Full Dress, Brukenthal

Museum, Sibiu, Romania; 1997 - The Shadow, The Hungarian Photography Museum,

Kecskemet, Hungary; 1996 - Una Finestra sull'Est, San Filippo Neri Gallery, Turin, Italy; 1996 -

Project 2000 Contest, Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy; 1996 - Experiment in Romanian

Contemporary Art after 1960, Artexpo Gallery, Bucharest; 1995 - Mediawave Festival, Györ,

Hungary; 1994-1997 - Part of the artist group 2D (with Mirela Dăuceanu); 1991 - cARTe, The

Museum of Art Collections, Bucharest.

Aurora Király is interested in researching the contemporary artistic phenomenon as an artist and

as a cultural manager or a curator, in order to contribute to the study and analysis of recent

Romanian art history.

The limited institutional opportunities on the Romanian art scene at the beginning of the 2000s

have challenged her to get involved in initiating a promoting structure for contemporary arts. She

founded Galeria Nouă in 2001 – an exhibition space centred around photography and new

technology projects – that greatly contributed to the development of the Romanian art scene.

During 2001 and 2008 she organised, at Galeria Nouă, exhibitions, events and conferences with

artists and important guests in the field of contemporary Romanian and international art.

After discontinuing the exhibition programme of Galeria Nouă in 2008, Aurora Király has

continued to work on projects with Galeria Nouă Association as a director. She has been

involved in educational projects promoting contemporary art since 2012.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Olivia Mihălţianu (b. 1981) studied visual arts at the University of Arts Bucharest and she

currently lives and works in Bucharest. Her artistic approach is related to cross-media and

process-oriented projects involving video, film, photography, object-making, installation and

5

performance. Usually long-term projects, the works follow various visual aspects related to

personal identity and social life in different cultures, political and economic situations, in a global

and local context, by questioning topics such as: the role played by the artist in today’s society,

archetypal human patterns, re-contextualization, and alienation. Working with specific locations,

from urban fabric to deserted beaches and from mountain tops to isolated islands, filtering

everything through iconic images inspired by cinema, video-art and photography, by using

historic cameras and cutting-edge technologies, is an attempt to move freely through time,

personal perceptions and social expectations.

Solo shows: 2017 – Film-métrage, LOOP Barcelona; 2016 - Winyan Kipanpi Win, The Visit, Anca Poterasu Gallery, Bucharest; 2014 - Winyan Kipanpi Win, Zygote Press, Cleveland, USA; 2013 - Winyan Kipanpi Win, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria; 2012 – Island/7days, Galerie Centrum, Graz, Austria; 2008 - Anyone But Me, Anywhere But Here, Contemporary Art Gallery, Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania; 2007 - 7-OLIVIA, HT003 Gallery, Bucharest, Romania. Selected Groups Shows: 2017 - Life – A User's Manual, Timișoara Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara and Arad, Romania; 2017 - Out Of Place, 3rd Mediterranean Biennale, Sakhinn Valley, Israel; 2016 – curated by_Edit Sasvari: Homage – Ideal or Pattern?, Knoll Gallery, Vienna; 2015 – Une autre cité, Tranzit.ro, Bucharest; 2013 - Reflection Center for Suspended Histories. An Attempt, 55th Venice Biennale, Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic Research, Venice; 2013 - Good Girls, National Museum of Contemporary Arts, Bucharest; 2012 – From the Backstage, Salonul de Proiecte, Bucharest; 2010 – where do we go from here?, Secession, Vienna; 2010 – Social Cooking, The Contemporary Art Gallery of The Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu; 2009-2010 – Weakfield Meadows, Pavilion Unicredit, Bucharest; 2008 – 4th Young Artists’ Biennial Bucharest; 2007 - Social Cooking Romania - NGBK, Berlin; 2007 – Found Footage, KSAK, Chişinău, Moldova 2007; 2004 - formate/moving patterns, Kunsthalle, Vienna.

Olivia Mihălțianu has participated in various artist-in-residence programs including: Cleveland Foundation - Creative Fusion, Cleveland IL, USA (2014); AIR - Krems, Austria (2013); Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France (2011-2012); KulturKontakt, Vienna, Austria (2011); Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest, Hungary by Gulliver Connect (2010); Schafhof Europäisches Künstlerhaus, Freising, Germany (2008).

6

List of Artworks

Olivia Mihălțianu, Island, 2008, DV Pal, Edition 5 + 1AP, 7’15 (film still)

Inspired by the aesthetics of the European cinema in relation with fashion, couture and holiday

culture from the late 50’s to recent times, the video work combines the enigmatic look of famous

stars and iconic characters like Monica Vitti, Brigitte Bardot and Jackie Kennedy Onassis with

the common Western feminine appearance and the Eastern European socialist feminist ideal.

The starting point is a missing scene in Antonioni’s film “L’eclisse”: Vittoria and Anita visit the

Verona Museum of Natural History, were they discover that long time ago in Verona there were

palm-trees, crocodiles and a landscape looking much like Africa today.

The stage, the posture and the attitude of the acting character are inducing the feeling of an

eternal repetition of situations, occurrences and moods, questioning identity issues as: presence

- absence, unique - common, personal – collective.

7

Olivia Mihălțianu, Film métrage, Robe de soirée, 1996, 35mm film, 85 x 150 cm

Film métrage is the generic title of a series of works developed in the last two decades referring

to the physical body of the film material, as well as to the immaterial aspect of the moving image

and the appetite of our society for producing endless supply of footage and imagery. It is looking

into the historic elements of the cinematography, combining professional with amateur standards

and productions (35mm, 16mm, super8 and 8mm) as well as new technologies, by manipulating

them in endless forms and modalities of reconfiguration, projection loops, mix-media installations

objects and other artistic productions.

8

Olivia Mihălțianu, Blueprint, Robe de soirée, 2016, 2/12 from the series Blueprint, Robe de

soirée, 2016 / 2017, each unique, cyanotypes on canvas, 155 x 110 cm

9

Olivia Mihălțianu, Blueprint, Robe de soirée, 2016, 3/12 from the series Blueprint, Robe de

soirée, 2016 / 2017, each unique, cyanotypes on canvas, 155 x 110 cm

10

Olivia Mihălțianu, Blueprint, Robe de soirée, 2017, 12/12 from the series Blueprint, Robe de

soirée, 2016 / 2017, each unique, cyanotypes on canvas, 155 x 110 cm

11

Olivia Mihălțianu, Winyan Kipanpi Win, Selfportraits, 8.9 x 12 cm each, direct gelatin silver prints,

2014

12

Olivia Mihălțianu, Winyan Kipanpi Win, Selfportraits, 8.9 x 12 cm each, direct gelatin silver prints,

2014

13

Olivia Mihălțianu, Photograms, 25 x 20 cm, 6 pieces, direct gelatin silver print, 2014

14

Exhibition view Anca Poterasu Gallery, 2017: Constructed Geometries. Space / Time / Memory Aurora Király, Melancholia series (1997 – 2000)

15

Aurora Király, Melancholia_Vienna, b/w silver gelatine print, 21 x 30 cm, 1999

16

Aurora Király, Melancholia_Vienna, b/w silver gelatine print, 20 x 30 cm, 1999

17

Aurora Király, Melancholia_Agigea, b/w silver gelatine print, 20 x 30 cm, 1999

18

Aurora Király, Melancholia_Solitude, Stuttgart, pigment print from b/w negative, 27,9 x 42 cm

Edition 6 + 1AP, 1998

19

Aurora Király, Melancholia_Solitude, Stuttgart, pigment print from b/w negative, 27,9 x 42 cm

Edition 6 + 1AP, 1998

20

Aurora Király, Melancholia_Solitude, Stuttgart, pigment print from b/w negative, 27,9 x 42 cm

Edition 6 + 1AP, 1998

21

Aurora Király, Melancholia_Stockholm, pigment print from b/w negative, 42 x 27,9 cm

Edition 6 + 1AP, 1998

22

Aurora Király, VIEWFINDER series, 2015, 50,5 x 72 cm charcoal on paper, cardboard and b/w

silver gelatine print 21 x 30 cm, 1998

Inspired by some contemporary writings on memory (e.g. Daniel Schacter’s book "The Seven

Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers", Mariner Books, 2002), this project

also refers on how our memory works. Each time we make the process of remembering we

enrich our memories by adding or excluding aspects, according to our recent experience,

intellectual background, emotional state, or context.

With this series, Aurora Király revisits, from the present perspective, photographs that she took

almost two decades ago, Melancholia series (1998 – 2000) The viewfinder is a device on the

camera that allows the user to select what the end image will show. Using a similar temporal

viewfinder, the artist re-frames photographic fragments from a past reality into an abstract recent

fiction.

23

Aurora Király, VIEWFINDER #5, 2015, 50,5 x 72 cm charcoal on paper, cardboard and b/w

silver gelatine print, 20 x 30 cm, 1998

24

Aurora Király, VIEWFINDER #2, 2014, 50,5 x 72 cm charcoal on paper, cardboard and b/w

silver gelatine print, 20 x 30 cm, 1998

25

Exhibition view / Aurora Király, Viewfinder Mock-up (2017) series charcoal and coloured pencils on cardboard, photo-engraving on Plexiglass, duct/brown adhesive tape, base pencil on millimetre paper and wooden pedestals (surface: 29.7 x 42 cm; different heights: 90 cm, 100 cm, 110 cm)

26

Aurora Király Viewfinder Mock-up (Nirvana), 2017, charcoal and coloured pencils on cardboard, photo-engraving on Plexiglass, duct/brown adhesive tape, 24,5 x 28 x 21,5 cm, base pencil on millimetre paper, 29,7 x 42 cm and wooden pedestal

27

Aurora Király Viewfinder Mock-up, (Hand), 2017, charcoal and coloured pencils on

paper/cardboard, photo-engraving on Plexiglass, duct tape/brown adhesive tape, 21,5 x 19 x

21,5 cm, pencil on millimetre paper, 29,7 x 42 cm and wooden pedestal

It is almost as if someone from the past is trying to imitate future technology using the means

and materials within their reach. What comes out is a simulacrum of that technology, a „cheap

imitation” à la John Cage. But at the same time, the work becomes an intimate, naïve and

pauper object that is profoundly subjective and humanized. Through the narrow slit of the double

fold, "Viewfinder" series is an invitation to voyeurism and an upside-down skeuomorphism.