How to Do Things

The third exhibition within the scope of “How to Do Things - In the Middle of Nowhere...” organized by International Center for Contemporary Art - ICCA, Bucharest at the Carturesti bookshop's tea salon and experimental basement space features new projects and older works by Kristina Inciuraite (LT), Katya Sander (DK), Jiri Skála (CZ), Moira Zoitl (A), and Société Réaliste.

The project "Ponzi's" by the artist group Société Réaliste travels to all five “How to Do Things - In the Middle of Nowhere...” exhibition venues in a locally adapted form, depicting heterogeneous views not only of economic models but also of the art market in all five countries. In Bucharest Société Réaliste presents a manager’s workshop. To train Autonomous Ponzi's Operators (potential franchise managers) the artists invented a training program that joyfully invites one to catch the "Ponzi's" spirit. By displaying a basic economical structure, the project—named after Charles Ponzi, who invented an illegal pyramid business scheme—reflects on production conditions and contexts and comments on the specific form of unbridled capitalism found in formerly socialist European countries.

"What is Capitalism?" asks artist Katya Sander in her film on show in Bucharest. The film set resembles the scenery of a Western: a naked landscape into which the protagonists' and spectators' desires are projected. Within this landscape, people seem to suddenly appear and are asked for the definition of capitalism.

For her Bucharest project Katya Sander interviewed news anchors from various Romanian TV stations. She addressed their relation to the word "I," which is never used in the news they read on television. Their profession requires them to avoid expressing personal opinions. On exhibit in Bucharest is a preliminary version of these interviews. The final version will be presented in Berlin and Bucharest in September.

Moira Zoitl shows her project "Chat(t)er Gardens. Stories by and about Filipina Workers." During a residency in Hong Kong, the artist was confronted with tens of thousands of female migrant workers from southeastern Asia gathering every Sunday at the center of the city’s renowned financial district. This impressive gesture of women attempting to annex public space for a day was the impetus for the project. In Bucharest Moira Zoitl continued her research on the situation of migrant women. The focus is on the TV moderator Mbela Nzuzi, who emigrated from Congo to Romania. The drawings she presents in the exhibition display storyboard-like narratives that function as a kind of script for a larger video work that the artist will present in Berlin.

Kirstina Inciuraite's Bucharest project "Designation" addresses the role of women in Romanian society, historically and today. She asked Bucharest architect Mariana Celac to propose public places in Bucharest - abandoned, under construction, or very central and stylish - that could potentially host a monument for a famous Romanian woman. The artist shows a series of photos depicting the selected locations and places blank books next to the photos, thereby inviting the public to suggest a female candidate to whom a monument in this space could be dedicated.

During his one-month residency in Bucharest, Jirí Skála developed a project that deals with collective and private memory and the imaginary. In his project he draws imaginary parallels between Bucharest's most famous landmark, the House of the People, a palace Ceaucescou built at the middle of the city, and a house portrayed in the horror movie "The Black Cat" from 1934. The artist presents a handwritten description of the building's interior and exterior, which he has done entirely from memory, and invites the viewer to rent the movie to be able to follow his memories.

Artists Kristina Inciuraite (LT), Katya Sander (DK), Jiri Skála (CZ), Moira Zoitl (A), Société Réaliste (HU/F)

Curators Dorothee Bienert, Irina Cios, Antje Weitzel

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