Friday 30.05 / 20h00 / CNDB
Cem A.: Crit Club (performance/ debate)
free entrance
Crit Club is a performance by Cem A. where two speakers debate an unrealistic question about art. We are often stuck between the binary of praise and non-engagement in the art sphere, where people are increasingly hesitant to inhabit spaces of disagreement.
In the context of this performance, participants are humorously invited to engage in what could be termed a contextual performance – a departure from their usual roles as artists or curators, aimed at broadening their perspectives and bolstering their influence within their community. As the performance progresses, guests are challenged to navigate uncharted waters through roleplay and quick thinking, grappling with existential inquiries such as: Does their expertise illuminate the issue at hand, or does it falter in the face of adversity? Can they uphold their understanding of the art world dynamics in a doomsday scenario? Do they embrace the given scenario, or do they seek to defy the confines imposed by the moderator?
By proposing an impossible-to-answer question, Crit Club creates a situation where ostensibly there’s nothing at stake – or so it seems.
For the Bucharest iteration of Crit Club, Cem A. invited Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu & Manuel Pelmuş.
With guest appearances by rhythmic gymnasts Caroline Ilie Nahmany & Cezara Maria Ilie.
Cem A. is an artist with a background in anthropology. He is known for running the art meme page @freeze_magazine and for his site-specific installations. His work explores themes such as virality and performativity, often through collaborative projects. Cem A.’s selected solo exhibitions and interventions include Barbican Centre, ZKM Karlsruhe, Berlinische Galerie, Louisiana Museum, Künstlerhaus Bethanien and Museum Wiesbaden. His work was also included in documenta fifteen, Istanbul Modern, Mudam Luxembourg, Klima Biennale Vienna, Temporary Gallery and 14. Biennial of Young Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje. He has held lectures at Royal College of Art, London; HEAD, Geneva; KASK, Ghent; Universität der Künste, Berlin and HDK Valand, Gothenburg.
Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu is a curator, writer, and educator working on constructive critiques of civilization, sustainability of intersectional futures, and practices of togetherness. She co-leads Art in Discourse program at Braunschweig University of Art. Durmuşoğlu recently curated two major monographic exhibitions: Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz’s Portrait of a Movement at CA2M, Madrid, and Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2022–23), and Katrina Daschner’s Burn&Gloom, Glow&Moon: Thousand Years of Troubled Genders’ at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2022), also editing their publications. Between 2021 and 2023 she co-curated the 3rd and the 4th editions of Autostrada Biennale in Kosovo with Joanna Warsza.
Manuel Pelmuş is a choreographer and artist who lives and works in Oslo and Bucharest. Pelmuş could be seen as one of the protagonists of the “new performance turn,” artists who have been reimagining the role of performance in the context of visual arts. He often deploys continuous live presence within the context of exhibitions, using enactment as a strategy and the human body as a medium and a means to explore the body’s relationship to memory and the construction of history. In addition to his recent solo exhibition at Para Site, Hong Kong (2018), Pelmuş’s projects have been featured at institutions including the Tate Modern, London; the Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Centre National de la Danse, Paris; TanzQuartier, Vienna; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Tanz im August, Berlin; and the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, among others.
