The Story of Kunsthaus 7B - Contemporary Arts in the Carpathian Mountains

 Photo: Cristian Draghici

 

In the years before COVID 19 the cultural tourism to Transylvania increased steadily. Main destinations had been the Church Fortresses and cities of Transylvanian Saxons as Brasov, Sighisoara and of course Sibiu, who had been European Cultural Capital 2007. Aside the public museums and their offers Kunsthaus 7B in Cisnadioara near Sibiu developed as a center for international contemporary art. It became an important factor in the cultural tourism to Transylvaina with increasing numbers of international exhibitions and visitors. Together with the Evanghelical Church Congregation of the German speaking minority in Transylvania, we transformed the old abandoned School House into an art-space. Surprisingly, the project did not start in one of the big cities with their urban culture, but in a village where values and traditions from the 13^th Century are sustaining unbroken.

How does it came to this project and why seems it to be necessary for Transylvania, Romania and Central-Europe?

My ancestors came from Transylvania, from the German speaking minority in the country between the Carpathian Mountains. I had been born in Germany, grew up in Germany and lived most of my life in Germany, not being so much aware of my roots on the Northern Balkan Peninsula.

In summer 1999 I had been first time in Romania. For me this journey had been very intensive, now I started to understand a lot about the structures and behaviors in our family and even in myself. Aside finding my roots, the trip caused new questions. The breath-taking landscape, the warmhearted politeness of the people, the awesome tasting food, all this had been a surprise for me. And then I asked myself, why people (now from Germany) go for holiday to North of Italy, in autumn for “Törgelen” to taste the new grape-juice and young wine? Why they are not coming to Transylvania?

After some years of travelling through Romania I remarked something particular: It seems to me that Romanian people don’t take culture for serious. They don’t take their own culture for serious. It seems to me, that the reason for that lack of believing in the own cultural productivity lies deeper in history, then in the years of communism. Of course, in times when intellectuals landed up in the Danube-Black Sea Channel, shoveling soil without any protection walls, then it is better no one is aware of the interest in sciences and culture. And on the other side, the officially declared intellectuals of Ceaucescu-Regime appeared helpless - they simply didn’t know how to be intellectual.

The countries along the river Danube are regions with enormous outstanding cultural skills as talents in music, literature, theater and visual arts. There is a long tradition of appreciating this. The Danube Area is one of the most creative areas in the world, evoking genius talents on almost all fields of cultural activities.

I decided to support contemporary-artists especially from Romania. I felt responsible for the people of my country and still I am convinced, that art from Central Europe should be placed again, where it belongs to, into the Center of Europe. Aside taking historical sites as castles and church-fortresses for serious, it is highest time that the Romanians taking their contemporary culture for serious. Art is transporting values and the culture of a land always describes the codes how people are behaving. Who is not caring about the contemporary culture of a country is not taking care, how its people are behaving.

Especially in Romania I found enormous skilled young artists, who preserved the values of the “homo europaeus” as Prof. Victor Neumann called him. The “homo europaeus”  is well educated, world-open, travelling, studying abroad, caring friendships all over the world, speaking several languages, empathic and blessed by a natural courtesy, understanding art in the meaning of enlightenment as something higher focusing the human being and the human reason.

This new generation of Romanian artists stayed abroad.  They know how life could be. They are free of suffering from communist or post-communist trauma, and they are free of the urge in coping western experimentalism. They believe in enlightenment and responsibility and creating a new, more refined time-less and space-less art. I think it is worth to support this artistic movement.

In 2017 I decided together with the Evanghelical Church Congregation of the German speaking minority to transform the old German speaking schoolhouse of the Transylvanian Saxons into an art-space, in order to create an exhibition space for Romanian and international artists. The idea is, that in Kunsthaus 7B as we called it, (the title of the project is a short version of the German word for Transylvania “Siebenbürgen”), artists from the Danube area and other regions of Europe are meeting with cultural interested people from all over the world, collectors, curators, journalists or just tourists appreciating art. With our global network of contacts in the art-world, that had been created through my activities as a collector, Kunsthaus 7B wants to be a stepping stone for artists from the Danube region to international careers. This project would not be possible without the support by the people from the village and the members of the Evanghelical Church Congregation in Cisnadioara.

The project is financially sustained by earnings from art-sales, contributions by the Church Congregation and me. Of course, the Corona caused travelling restrictions in 2020 creates a horrible financial situation for our artists and us. At this moment we are depending more and more on the philanthropic support of families, who support the idea of Kunsthaus 7B and who understand, that it is important for Transylvania, Romania and Central Europe that private cultural projects sustain this period. They are giving us hope and motivation to continue.

Oana Ionel Exhibition in Vienna - Something is going on in the East - Portrait about the artist

 

Photo Credit: Josefina Danzinger

The Oana Ionel exhibition “The Secret Stories of Danube River” in Vienna's Private Art Club “ART 9TEEN” is already one of the surprising and remarkable exhibitions in Austria's capital city this year.

The young Bucharest artist shows the Viennese audience that it is time to talk about our understanding of borders. "In times when we prefer to build walls rather than bridges, it becomes clear that we have to re-discuss our understanding of borders." One of the key concepts in Ionel's work is to understand borders as an invitation, to linger, to meet and communicate, to negotiate and trade and for mutual understanding. “The Danube ignores man-made boundaries, makes them permeable and metaphorical,” Ionel describes her point of view. This is hardly surprising, as her Central European homeland was for centuries the border between East and West, between the ancient Roman Empire and Byzantium, between the Enlightenment and Orthodoxy. This border goes through regions, landscapes, villages, streets, families and sometimes through individual people. But the doctorate artist and psychologist is interested in something else, namely to find out from our own limitations of fear, which guides us more than usual in politics and society today, from the limitation of analytical thinking, of “either or” towards infinitely creative "as well as".

Oana Ionel is fascinated by water, by the constant incessant process of becoming new, of coming and going, of washing up new territory and the invisible land, but becoming new again and again. For her, water is a living being with a memory spanning millions of years, older than that of the people on the river. Water always has the tendency to find its way back. The water of the Danube remembers Ada Kaleh, the Danube Island that sank in 1971. The island, which belongs to Romania, was evacuated in 1968 in a "night-and-fog operation". The Turkish originated population was promptly asked to leave the island. Then it remained empty for several years until it sank into the catchment basin of the Danube in 1971 when the Iron Gate 1 dam was built. Ada Kaleh with his fate became a symbol of diversity, living space and respect. "Above all, a lack of respect for life" adds Ionel. From the perspective of the young artist Ada Kaleh, the massive pressure with which the island was depopulated by the rulers of the time and then left empty for years makes a further example of the failure of a patriarchal society. “Men who are distant from life want to force others to have their own pathological reality”. You can tell that Ionel belongs to a generation that has lived abroad and knows what life can be like in a democracy and in a constitutional state. And this is also a generation that no longer puts up with everything.

The Bucharest artist Oana Ionel is socially committed herself. She organizes conferences or acts as a speaker when it comes to the coexistence of ethnic groups in the Danube countries. She is ready to take responsibility for her country and for Europe. Oana Ionel can't stand people doing nothing, like watching hypnotized situations and sleeping with their eyes open. “I always thought that it only exists here in Eastern Europe, that it has something to do with communism.” Now she has to realize that she was wrong. What scares her today is that she is observing doing nothing and watching or looking away more and more often in the West, in France, Germany, Austria, in many countries. “You see democracy as a consumer good that you like or not, that you zap or spit out at will. One does not realize that democracy is something that can be shaped, a process that one can get involved in. People are no longer aware of what they have achieved in democracy, in personal prosperity, in personal freedom. You risk too much and sacrifice it to populism that is alien to life ”.

Ionel used the lockdown in spring 2020 to reconsider. "I notice that I need another larger look, that I need larger formats in my work that deal with the really important things of our time, not to lose sight of the whole."

In her lockdown work “Stillness”, Oana Ionel portrayed the silence that captures us when we see a beach from above. In excerpts, but realizing that there is a greater whole. "The lockdown has thrown us back on ourselves, on our own insignificance but also on the confrontation with ourselves"

How can one express timeless meta-political social criticism other than in strong, timeless abstractions? Ionel has no answer to this, stays calm, abstraction is a universal language for her that everyone understands. You can feel the energy in her expressive work. It is a timeless, always there energy that charismatically embraces and ensnares the viewer, but leaves him the freedom of his own interpretation. In doing so, she manages the rare balance between her powerful, expressive brushstrokes and the strong colors, which lively, lively emulate the vortex of the river, but also symbolize the hustle and bustle in the cities along the Danube. At the same time, the work by no means seems light-footed and banal, but rather profound and serious. One stands in front of her works in different shades of blue and turquoise with the same emotion as one stands in front of the Danube itself. She repeatedly uses wax as a special element, which is mysteriously associated with the gold dust of Byzantine painting.

There is not much symbolism required in Oana Ionel's work, and it is not necessary to chase after artistic trends to attract attention. Oana Ionel leads the way. She is already a role model for many young women and artists, not only in Eastern Europe.

 

 

 

Remapping the Future - Reality Exhibition in Vienna

Photo "Retell History 2", by Maria Corejova, Bratislava 2020, Digital Drawing on comatex 1/10

The idea for this exhibition came up in the times of lockdown, because of COVID-19. While people are not allowed to leave their houses without essential reasons, shops, factories and companies are closed and the world is caught up in a lockdown, in order to avoid the virus, a group of four Slovakian artists started to remap the future.

They developed an own draft of the map of their future. Preparing the exhibition and even simple things as transporting artworks brought the four artists and the gallery to their limits, or lets say to the borders of their present mapping. Borders thought by humans are coming and going and coming and going, it seems to be an eternal circle. In the end of April 2020 it had been simply not possible to bring artworks from Bratislava in Slovakia to Vienna in Austria. Not the 60 km transport-way are the problem, but crossing the border. If you come back to your home-country, you have to accept a 2 weeks quarantine, in order to interrupt spreading the virus.

The artists and the gallery decided to accept the situation, there is no other possibility. But they can map their future and their life under the given conditions.  The heart of Europe is still active, the Self-Responsibility. The guidelines of these days and of our future are, activity instead of waiting, finding solutions instead of resignation and looking to the future.  The artists found a way to bring their works to Vienna, safe and under strictly following existing laws for hygiene. And the gallery find a possibility to introduce the works to art-connoisseurs and collectors. In a seldom way of spontaneous collaboration Europeans from Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Germany and Romania contributed to enable the exhibition. So the reality of Central Europe, and the world, in April 2020 and its consequences became the concept for the exhibition

But honestly, the time of staying in our houses showed us that it is possible but not necessary to run around and travel like ants. It is possible as well to stay at home and enjoy the family as a safe haven, and to respect and appreciate nature. This is the main idea in the works of Alena Adamikova. She points it out like that “The animals on the heads of the Infantas in my works  represent the protectors from the nature, nature is here for us, we humans somehow don't notice it”. In her lyrical work, Alena Adamikova is inspired by the Baroque paintings of great masters as Diego Velasquez. She leads us in a remapped future of family, harmony and fairytales.

As well the map of the structures of our daily behavior is changing. Everything is ordered with guide-lines as in the work of Maria Corejova. Even in Isolation caused by COVID-19 the life is more systematic, clear, clean, functional, but there is a window. The individual freedom to create your own life. It will get more and more important. This is one of the main thematics in the work of Maria Corejova, the understanding and meaning of individual freedom. Remapping the future, creating another plan of the future means nowadays to put this plan on the ground of a new understanding of freedom: The freedom of others and our-selves.

Kristina Mesaros looks in her works behind the mystery of time and space, in order to describe a magic phantasy world in a contemporary and timeless symbolism. Her work is different than phantastic realism, as it had been brought up by great Vienez masters as Ernst Fuchs. Her work is more than the continuation of surrealism but she develops a kind of magic realism, which is fascinating the observer, who is almost falling into the scenery. Her artworks are the kind of works you never forget.

In the works of Olga Pastekova we are coming back to the role of nature in our daily life. She is working and experimenting with wood. She is engraving, cutting, painting over it, filling the wood with color, burning the wood and integrating the black scars of nature into the expression of her unique reminder. So black is more then a color, it becomes a memory.

All four artists are representing a generation of self-confident and strong Central European women. In their diversity they are unified to be ready to remap the future, their own future, the future of their families, of nature and the future of Europe, even after the lockdown.

The exhibition is visible at Art9Teen - Viennas Private Arts Club and events, Billrothstrasse 29, Vienna-Döbling, wednesday - Sunday 16.00 - 18.00 h or by appointment www.art9teen.eu 

Thomas Emmerling, curator, Cisnadioara, Michelsberg May 2020

The Forgotten Tradition - Collecting Art in Romania

 

"Peony", by Birgit Reiner, born in Sibiu, living in Bonn

60 x 30 cm, oil on canvas, march 2020

 

 

 

“Doesn't have this country other problems, then collecting art?” Quite often I hear that question, when I introduce myself as an art-collector living in Romania. Yes, the country has a lot of problems, because the society is transforming from a strict conserving society into a dynamic post-modern one. And in this process of transformation, which is visible all over the world, not only in Romania, the individual is getting more and more important. This development is visible In fashion, in travelling, in food, in life-style as well in daily life and behavior of people. With this development, parallel old traditions – or may I say retro fashions? – are coming back, as collecting art.

There are an increasing number of Art-Collectors in Romania. Nobody took the effort yet to analyze exactly the market-figures, because for too long, collecting art had been considered in Romania as exotic hobby of a certain elite, who wanted to show off with their collection their power and poverty.  What surprises me and makes me happy in the same way, that most Romanian Art-Collectors that I know are younger than me. This is reflected as well in their collections, its style, the artists and artworks which are represented in. The new Romanian collections are more open minded, more international, more colorful. This development is a mirror of the contemporary society in Romania. Most visitors, visiting the country are surprised about its open mind, internationality and colorful life, especially the art-scene in cities as Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara. The liberal artsy spirit in this cities is determined of course by the international art-universities, but as well in taking art serious again.

Since Adrian Ghenie broke through in 2006 and increased its auction results at Sotheby’s 16 fold, art is considered as well as an investment. From Ghenie, who is the most important representative of the “School of Clu” and the art-center in the old brush factory (“Fabrica de Pensule”), many Romanian businessmen learned how to make money with collecting art.

Nevertheless, Timisoara, European Cultural Capital 2021, and Cluj-Napoca had been for Centuries part of the Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian Empire, which brought as well the appreciation for Fine Arts into bourgoise families.

Nowadays, Romanians are travelling a lot, living abroad for some time and coming back, knowing how life could be. And they observe that people in Western Countries decorate their homes and office with original art. This is how usually, art-collections are starting. People find out that the esthetic of contemporary art around, gives another mood, another mind and makes us feel better, they continue searching for that moments of pleasure. “When I look at Contemporary Art, a painting, a sculpture, a video-installation and I remain looking at it, I feel better” the new, individualistic collectors are reporting.  And they learned to look for artists from other countries and continents.

Romanian collectors of international contemporary art are travelling to important fairs, discovering new artists, are curious about new works of their favourite artist, build connections to galleries and curators and ask for professional advice from art-experts. The recent collector-generation are by profession lawyers, business-people from the IT-Sector, from the Investment sector, real-estate developers and industrialists. But we should not forget the huge amount of expats, coming from other countries and staying in Romania for business, often employed by multi-national companies with respectable income.

 

ART 9TEEN – Viennas Private Art Club & Events are showing, now virtually on their website www.art9teen.eu works by different Romanian collectors. Due to the current crisis, the exhibition is now just virtually, but might follow real soon.  “We want to show that Romania has serious collectors of international Contemporary Art”, the organizers explain. Nevertheless, Vienna’s art-world is curious, what is going on there in the almost forgotten area of South-Eastern-Europe. Why cities as Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest are the cultural hotspots between Vienna and Istanbul now? And why galleries like Mihai Nicodim are in Bucharest and in Los Angeles, Plan B in Cluj and Berlin, Kunsthaus 7B near Sibiu and in Vienna? Inspired from the questions of the art-world outside Romanias, the team of ART9TEEN in Vienna Döbling is preparing its virtual club-events for collectors and the next exhibition with works from the portfolio of more Romanian collectors.

“Global Contemporary – Art from Romanian Private Collections”

www.art9teen.eu



COVID-19 and the art-market

 

"The Spell" by Radu Rodideal, Bucharest 2018, 120 x 80 cm, oil on canvas

“The words turn old in the mouth already”, German Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl (1930 - 2017) said in times of falling Berlin wall. Simillar situation we experience now, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The situation of yesterday can be totally different tomorrow afternoon. And yet the virus did not reach the US in its full power.

By far it is too early to assume about the impact of COVID-19 on the art-market. For sure, due to COVID-19 the art-world will change and become new structures. Once more the global diseases shows, threats like this can only be challenged together. It is a wishful thinking of a few, that one country by itself can stop the whole development. The once who had this idea 2 weeks before, woke up and are faced now with the cruel reality of the virus. Social contacts and communication are necessary and getting more necessary. But it might change from the real to the virtual, more clean and safe world of the internet, at least until global virus-attacks are appearing here. Until then, all business sectors that can use tech-solutions will benefit from the recent crisis and their effects. ART Basel Hong-Kong as a virtual art-fair with limited entrance proofs, that it is working and collectors accept their phone as a tool to buy art. This signal from Asia is important for the art-world.  Explicit, a signal from Asia is encouraging, not more from Paris, London or New York.  This weekend Art-Basel Hong-Kong, that the galleries in their online-spaces have stable turnovers. Even sales up to 1 Mio USDollar and higher are done virtually. It seems that millennial-collectors waited for the chance to buy art from their couch, which they had before, but in times of global lock-down there is no other chance.

 Therefore art business online-auctions and platforms as artsy will increase their activities and will win huge market-shares. As well it is easier and cheaper for artists to present their works with galleries. At least the huge market segments of many transactions with a single value below 50.000 Euro will benefit. Online-Openings and virtual guided tours will replace the tradition of the vernissage, opening-ceremonies and life-artist talks, where the success is measured in number of participants and of course on spot sales. But an artist can’t live and pay bills from likes on instagram.  Maybe likes and shares on social media will replace the role of exhibitions abroad in the CV of artists. Now when more and more museums and galleries and even Art Basel 2020 are offering their virtual tours, the increasing importance of the internet in art-trade will remain and be stronger.  We are aware that the visual impression of a photo on our smartphones or at our computers will not be the same like seeing the original artwork. And no online-photo can replace the atmosphere of seeing an artwork, which had been made by the hands of a famous artist, had been created by the artist.

As well important is to check what is happening on the other side of the market, on the side of collectors and art-buyers. In times where banks and investment companies can invent unlimited money, it should be possible to heal the economic damages caused by COVID-19. It is possible to support tourism and transport sector, small and medium sized companies. And it would be possible to support artists, as Germany does it with guarantees as well as accepting postponements of tax-payments. But this is not resolving the problem of lack of liquidity and cash-flow in the middle and lower ranges of art-world.  Nowadays it would be necessary that museums document what is going on these weeks or months, in buying art now. With an additional budget, museums could buy their own “Corona-Collection”. As well it would support artists over the financial crisis.

But we have to take in consideration, that more governments will take advantage from the recent situation and cut cultural budgets, because the money is needed elsewhere. Yes, I am talking about the time after COVID-19, when the medical systems are repaired. We have to demand all governments worldwide on all levels, from local to international, to support much stronger the cultural sector as theatre, concert-halls and visual art.

Facing the developments of the last decades, the private art-collections will increase in its meaning for the sector. And here is a big chance for galleries to change their business-model. The gallery-owner of the future will be less artist and mate of the creatives, administrating their objective lives, he and she will be more art-advisors and consultant at the side of the collector. He will help the collector to place the right investment, to figure out the artists he should know, to select to filter and to propose. Private collectors with money will avoid crowds of people more than ever, therefore the individual close contact between gallery and client, which makes buying art as an experience, will be the successful model. In times of global threats, trust and confidence are very important in business, especially in art-investment. But to build up confidence, nearness and discussions are mandatory. Surely we can assume, that due to the financial crisis following after the Corona-Virus, private collectors might slow down with their art-investment, related to prices as well as in terms of amounts or rating of artworks and artists. But art-trade will continue and grow.

Never before in history of mankind globally, art is blooming as much as today. And never had been so many artworks traded like nowadays. Now in selling art, we should proof flexibility and virtual and real nearness to the clients, the collectors.

Thanks Corona - Time to look at art again

 

Guinevere, by Birgit Reiner, Bonn, Germany, 2010, ca. 40 x 60 cm, oil on canvas

 

Projects – Meetings – Deadlines – New Contacts - airports – hotels – diners, the life of an art-collector can be quite busy.  Especially when you are ambitious to support your artists. It is very interesting to develop careers of new and young talents. Of course it improves the value of the own collection, when the ones you discovered are growing as well. But this is speculation. Mainly I am driven by the idea to make the world with art more beautiful and by the challenge to reach a goal, to see the artist I discovered in a museum in a solo-show or in an important group-exhibition and to see the artist reaching another level.

Sometimes people ask me, if this is the same fever like hunting? Collecting and hunting are belonging together in an archaic understanding of life. I am not a gambler, but maybe a hard worker, who likes to achieve the impossible.

And then comes Corona-Virus and stops everything. It reminds me, about 15 years ago, I had a health problem and had to stay in hospital. I thought for one night for observation, but it had been for two weeks because of a complicated surgery. The State of Emergency now in times of Corona stopped everyone very abrupt. No more meetings, no more travelling, just, staying at home, almost like Christmas. I am not the one sitting now on the couch and checking all my social media accounts. I prefer to sit down at my desk and write for my blog or – coming back to an old passion finally, watching the artworks in my collection.

Some people might prefer watching one film after the other, to avoid silence, some people might listen to music or look in a photo-book about gardens.  I prefer to go to my living room and take a work from the wall or bring it from my storage room, where I have them all in shelves. I free them from their destiny to be decoration or just something to store.  I take a glass of tea. Just this atmosphere is amazing peaceful, to slow down, enjoy the tea and look at the work, where someone put his or her hand into it. Just this moment is amazing, when I smell the tea, holding a work in my hand, sometimes it is difficult because of the size, put it in sight and then starts the encounter with the creation of a master.

Initially I started collecting art, especially contemporary art, because I love to look at the work, with all I know about its author.  I love to read about the artist, to understand more about the personality, his struggles, his joys, what lead the artist to this movement of the brush, to this stroke of the tools?

And then I wait, I am listening to the artwork, I wait until it begins to tell its story. Every artwork has a story to tell. And now I mean a deeper story then exhibition places, auction results and so on. Every artwork has its own story to tell. It is the story about the relation between the artist and the work and the work and us who look at it and listen to it. Sometimes the story is reflected in the title. I don’t like works named “Untitled”, because it doesn’t allow the work to protest against its title. The artist just wants to escape from the discussions with the work.  Yes it can happen that the artist doesn’t understand the work, like parents don’t understand their own children. Yes it is happening that artworks are bigger than their creator.  With the work, the creator is growing over himself, like the creator is growing with every work. I love to listen to artworks when they tell about their discussions with the artist.  I love this silent dialog with the piece. The dialog with minimalistic art gives me the freedom to ask questions.  Every time I talk with the work, new aspects appearing, new questions arising, new stories have to be told.

Listening and watching are creating an own symbiosis, which describes the state of being open, that the artworks possesses you.  It is a silent and seductive way, how the beloved artwork possesses the collector, and makes the collector to surrender.

I love to visit museums, the friendly and honorable atmosphere, where you greet important works of great masters, but they are hiding in the loudness of the daily business, they reject the intimate dialog, which only a personal collection allows.

In situation like this, of course I escape from my daily life, and quite often I decide to cut off more time for celebrating this private dialog, where every time I learn something new. This makes the art-world so exciting, it is never boring, every-time you learn something new, when you are ready to listen and watch.

Romanian TV about Kunsthaus 7B in Cisnadioara, Jud. Sibiu

German Speaking Television Program "Akzente" visited Kunsthaus 7B in Cisnadioara (Michelsberg), Romania and reported about the old schoolhouse, we transformed into an artspace.
Nowadays we are organizing 3-4 exhibitions per year with Romanian and international artists. We want to support Romanian artists and contribute to the cultural landscape in our home, Transilvania.
Sorry, the video is in German language with Romanian subtitles, but maybe some of you understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwEXedfGpNw