Architectures / Dessins / Utopies

ARCHITECTURES/DESSINS/UTOPIES
works from the Centre National Des Arts Plastiques, Paris
24 January–20 April 2011

MNAC Bucharest
2 – 4 Izvor St., E4, Bucharest 5 (RO), 050563
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Wednesday – Sunday 10.00h – 18.00h
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Vito ACCONCI // Elisabeth BALLET // Yves BÉLORGEY // Etienne BOSSUT // Rosemarie CASTORO // Philippe COGNÉE // Enzo CUCCHI // Horia DAMIAN // Richard DEACON // Nathalie ELEMENTO // Yona FRIEDMAN // GAROUSTE & BONETTI // Dan GRAHAM // Yong Ping HUANG // Alain JOSSEAU // Jean-Paul JUNGMANN // Ilya KABAKOV // Tadashi KAWAMATA // KCHO // Per KIRKEBY // Jan KOPP // P.Nicolas LEDOUX // Sol LeWITT // Markus LÜPERTZ // Najia MÉHADJI // Didier MENCOBONI // Tania MOURAUD // Matt MULLICAN // Roman ONDÁK // Dennis OPPENHEIM // Lucy ORTA // Yazid OULAB // Claude PARENT & François LETAILLIEUR // Giuseppe PENONE // Gaetano PESCE // Françoise QUARDON // Evariste RICHER // Georges ROUSSE // Yvan SALOMONE // Fred SANDBACK // Richard SERRA // Veit STRATMANN // Tatiana TROUVÉ // Tamas ZANKO //

curator
Ruxandra Balaci
MNAC Artistic Director

coorganizer
Claude Allemand-Cosneau
Director of the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain/CNAP

The Architectures/Dessins/Utopies exhibition presents drawings (collages, drawn interventions) pertaining to architecture by visual artists and drawings by architects that go beyond architecture stricto sensu. It will be on display at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest from January to April 2011 and relies on a selection of works, rarely or never shown before, from the prestigious French state collection, the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain/Centre National des Arts Plastiques.

Architecture is envisaged as a central theme, a protagonist, resembling concrete or imaginary iconography in the artistic process of many contemporary artists. Artists are using architecture as a framework: scenographical, philosophical, socio-anthropological and symbolic, to point out contradictions of contemporary life, to focus on psychological and behavioural knowledge, on urban culture and civilization with all the vast and complex issues of today’s megacities. Architecture is perceived and metonymically acts as an evolving parameter of development or, on the contrary, as a sensor for alienation, high anxiety caused by globalisation, excessive economic growth, recession, social disparity and political conflicts. It connects, on the one hand, to the de-humanisation of inhabitable spaces, to the proliferation of surveillance, of restrictive/oppressive enclosures, of inclusion/seclusion (through physical, mental or symbolic barriers). But on the other hand, to the potential of making living spaces more harmonious and ethically bearable, to transform the natural landscape, to create openings and enrich spaces, gaining utopian dimensions, becoming, ultimately, a metaphor for human life.

Drawing turns out to be a concrete investigative tool to structure factual reality and to lead towards real architectural propositions. But also a playful tool for shaping the imaginary and the utopian, suggesting a fictional order where weightlessness, newly created metaphysical armony, the expansion of space and the abolition of time are possible.

Drawing allows both elaboration and improvisation. As if through the sketch—in the cognitive visual process—a kind of a Zen like state of “awaking consciousness” is maintained.

The exhibition is accompanied by the no. 8 issue of Cahiers de la Creation Contemporaine / CNAP / Paris.

Project realised with the support of : Ministere Francais de la Culture et Communication,

Institut Francais Paris

MNAC partner : BRD Groupe Societe Generale

Sponsors: ING Bank, Chocolat, Cramele Rotenberg

Media partners: Igloo, Zeppelin, 24 Fun, Radio France Internationale, feeder.ro, Cocor MediaChannel

*Image above:
© Vito Acconci /CNAP.
Photo by Y. Chenot, Paris.