05.12.2024
Bucharest
DAN MIHĂLŢIANU: FLYING RADIO
Open House: joi, 05.12.2024, 17:00–21:00
in association with the exhibition “The Romanian Poster in the ’90s”
The Institute of the Present, Erou Ion Călin 19, Bucharest
“Flying Radio” (1989–2024) is a project on the capacity of the radio broadcast to elevate the spirits, influence the course of history and transcend space and time. It uses a number of radios that emit several recordings of crucial or important political, social and cultural moments of history, from various geographical areas and moments in time. The devices are part of a series of installations, while at the same time they are objects that can be exhibited independently.
The radio receiver “Carmen” produced by the Electronica Company, Bucharest, was used during the events of December, 1989, in Romania that led to the overthrow of the Ceaușescu regime. A selection of 30 minutes of live audio recordings from the Romanian Radio-Television, made by the artist between December 21– 26, 1989, are heard in loop from the loudspeaker of the device, reviving the dramatic moments of that time.
In December 2024, the device is “Radio-in-Residence” at the Institute of the Present in Bucharest.
The works of DAN MIHĂLŢIANU (Bucharest, 1954) lie at the intersection between official and personal histories, following an artistic practice that explores the boundaries between art and politics with a discursive and analytical lens. For Mihălţianu, the study of the spheres of human existence, whether individual or collective, and the documentation of the events that disturb and modify the social fabric in a given time, are done from the perspective of an indifferent history, as the artist himself defines it. Indifferent history is attuned to the specificity of a context and the major events it undergoes as the result of specific encounters between the official and personal.
Event part of “The Back Room”. Cultural project co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The project does not necessarily represent the standpoint of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN cannot be held liable for the content of the project or the manner in which the outcomes of the project may be used. These shall devolve entirely on the beneficiary of the financing.
