Late last month artist Klas Eriksson set Bucharest's towering Intercontinental hotel ablaze in a fiery performance — cheekily titled "Com’on You Reds" — that marked the launch of the fifth Bucharest Biennale. The 2012 edition, curated by Anne Barlow — director of New York non-profit Art in General — boasts the subversive-sounding theme "Tactics for the Here and Now" and an international roster of 17 artists creating projects throughout the Romanian capital.
"Within the context of the shifting nature of economics, politics and culture, I was interested in artistic practices whose agency lies in investigative or indirect approaches that possess their own kind of power," Barlow explained to ARTINFO via email. "While many artists in the Biennale engage with the subjects of territories and histories, risky and unstable positions, or systems of authority, they do so in a way that is characterized by ambiguity, non-linearity and the quasi-fictional, or by tactics of subterfuge and infiltration."
Appropriately, the exhibition has infiltrated an incredible variety of venues, and spans enormous spaces like the Casa Presei Libere and a former textile factory, as well as the University of Bucharest's Institute for Political Research and a quaint downtown restaurant where British artist Ruth Evan has installed a jukebox loaded with politically charged songs.
"While some artists responded to particular sites, such as Klas Eriksson’s flare performances at the Intercontinental hotel and Make A Point," Barlow said, "the majority are situated in spaces that provide meaningful contexts for their presentation — whether this is a physical location or an existing distribution platform such as a cinema, or local publication, as seen in Jill Magid's narratives embedded in the current issues of Vice, Tabu, and Zeppelin magazines."
Bucharest Biennale 2012 continues through July 22.
To see works from the Bucharest Biennale, click on the slide show.
To see a clip of Klas Eriksson's "Com’on You Reds" performance, click on the video below:
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