On January 30th, 2014,
Nicolaus Schafhausen, the appointed curator of the Bucharest Biennale 6 (BB6), released a public statement that he was withdrawing from the
project, stating that : “The curatorial direction of BB6 developed in a
direction inconsistent with that of PAVILION – the local organisers in the
Romanian capital, Bucharest.” (Răzvan Ion & Eugen Rădescu, are the
co-directors of BB6 and the co-directors of PAVILION)
Schafhausen had been
appointed in the summer of 2012 and had attended the previous edition of the
biennale (BB5) which opened in May 2012 in Bucharest. This current project was
to be organised in close cooperation and collaboration with Kunsthalle Wien in
Austria, and significant symposia in both Vienna and Bucharest had been
planned. Schafhausen also stated that he contacted several sponsors to fund and
support BB6, based on the curatorial direction and the theme of “Longing and
Belonging.” This theme was to include international artists born in
Romania. The curator and his concept had been also officially announced by the
organizers of the biennale who supported it.
However, after a year and a
half of work, the partnership between PAVILION and Schafhausen /Kunsthalle Wien
fell apart, the curator citing that “irreconcilable differences” had emerged,
so that “the curator and his partners cannot in good faith continue to support
BB6 and PAVILION, and consequently must terminate any further commitments.”
Upon hearing the news, which
was announced only via an official statement of withdrawal on the website of
Kunsthalle Wien, the artistic community in Romania was left with a series of
unanswered questions as to what exactly the “irreconcilable differences” were
and in general, the details behind the dissolving of the partnership. In a public note, Raluca Voinea, a curator based in
Bucharest, wrote: “I think this decision has a negative impact upon the entire
scene in Bucharest, which will be again judged as unserious and unprofessional.
I don’t believe he was not warned what he’s getting himself into and he had
enough time to figure it out in the meantime. [..] he was not to curate the
Vienna biennale but the one in Bucharest, so I expected at least an open letter
with explanations if not a press conference addressed to the professional
community in Bucharest.” Voinea’s note received many comments from local
artists, critics, curators, and gallerists. Artist Cristina David had
this to add: “[…] I don’t think as you do, that the entire art scene of
Bucharest will be judged as unserious, I do hope that the team of BB6 will be
the one that supports the consequences. […] I think people should not do
compromises of getting along with all kinds of irregularities, because then
they also give credit to the ones that don’t deserve it (BB6 people)”. Mircea Nicolae, artist,
also remarked: “Personally, I do not think BB6 internal organisational problems
have anything to do with others than Pavilion people themselves. What they have
been doing for a while now is well known and publicly available, not in the
least on the ArtLeaks page. To start with, maybe we can lay the blame where it
belongs, and leave it there for a while. […] I do not believe that the invited
curator should have just accepted the problems, even if they menaced to
completely alter the project. For one, it seems that Pavilion has a blacklist
of local artists. So if you want to work with the local scene you have to make
your way around that list, if you can. If the list is extensive and maybe even
goes to the point of being exhaustive of the local scene, there might be a
problem.”
[...]
hope it will Be successful biennial after all !
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