Animations / Fictions - Bucharest

Animations / Fictions
January - August 2008

Curator: Ruxandra Balaci
Co-organized by: Claude
Allemand-Cosneau
Organized by: MNAC, CNAP, FNAC Paris, Cultures France



http://www.mnac.ro/events%20main.htm



Animations/fictions presents curatorial research over a group of works from the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain that have been consigned to the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest. The exhibition spotlights different ways in which comic strips and cartoons have been used by French and international contemporary artists.

Its guiding principle is how cartoons have appeared in citational form and using different approaches: initially in the Pop Art style before becoming, at a later stage (1990s-2005) and in a context removed from animation, an explicit source of inspiration. The featured artists express highly sophisticated concepts in an easily understandable language. By refering to contemporary concepts into images, borrowing childhood iconography, or creating images inspired by Walt Disney or mangas, beyond their connotations of an all-pervasive subculture, mass culture and media in today's globalised world, all these images remain powerful vectors for sometimes dramatic events. They reveal an adult awareness of the gravity of the present day through a child's wide-eyed gaze.

This selection of works, all very different in their form and message, also highlights how contemporary figuration draws on its close ties with the various genres of popular culture, switching it towards a different area.



The exhibition is being shown to the Romanian public at the MNAC from January to end of August 2008. Other events (talks) are also being staged at the MNAC or at the Institut Français in Bucharest, which is also hosting a programme of residencies for French artists in 2008.

Organisers : MNAC, CNAP, FNAC, French Embassy, French Institut, Cultures France
Sponsor: Peroni
Partners of the French Embassy: BRD, Orange, Alcatel, Apanova, Carrefour
Media Partners: 24 Fun, Re:PUBLIK, Igloo, Arhitectura






Artists: Boris Achour, Pierre Bismuth, Wim Delvoye, Gérard Deschamps, Erró, Pierre Huyghe, Bernard Joisten, Pierre Joseph, William Kentridge, Koo Jeong-A, Suzanne Lafont, Bertrand Lavier, François Letaillieur, Mac Adams, David Mach, Petra Mrzyk & Jean François Moriceau, Raymond Pettibon, Alain Séchas, Jim Shaw, Sandy Skoglund, Fabien Verschaere, Wang Du