2002-11-14 - Romania
8th issue of the journal ARTELIER devoted to contemporary art from the Balkans
Devoted to contemporary art from the Balkans, and more specifically to the sudden interest of important international curators and art institutions for this region.
Until recently, arts from the Balkans have been relegated to a cultural blur, in favour of other, more spectacular sites of exoticism.

Call for theoreticians:
Artelier will strive to answer the questions "What is Balkanic art? Is such a notion legitimate or operational?" from a range of perspectives, interrogating both self-representation and the conceptual framework underlying a significant number of international exhibitions of contemporary art.

If you have knowledge of artists or art groups whose work involves the issue of Balkanic art, or if you wish to contribute an article to our publication, please email!

Call for artists:
Our inquiry stems from the surprisingly large number of exhibitions devoted to emerging trends in the region, which attempt to define the Balkans as a homogenous, however exotic, entity, producing art that is passionate, bloody, visually aggressive and fundamentally melancholic (due to political, historical and economic factors).
How should the artists from the Balkans react to this demand for exoticism and homogeneity?
We would like to document various perspectives on the subject, so please answer the following two questions:
Do you believe there is a aesthetic specificity of contemporary art coming from the Balkans? Is your work influenced by the Balkanic cultural model?
Feel free to react to the general framework of our questions, to give examples of your work and attach 3-4 images in jpeg format, to cross borders, and to forward this questionnaire to other artists or theorists in the region.
The deadline for the answers is the 20th of December.
Please send your contribution via email to Mihnea Mircan.

Artelier is published by The Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest.
Source: Artservis by Alenka Pirman - Slovenia