DELIA POPA & ANCA MIHULET
BIO
Delia Popa
2012
Chelen Amenca, with Ellen Rothenberg, curated by Anca Mihuleț, The Contemporary Art Gallery of The Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania
FemArt 2012, Caminul Artei Gallery, curated by Marilena Preda Sanc, opening presenter Magda Carneci, Bucharest, Romania
2011
The Blind Men and the Elephant,Video-Screening with Diana Sandor, curated by Graw Böckler, Raum für Projektion, General Public, Berlin, Germany
THE KNOT DVD Release, Knotland Video-Screening, Kotti-Shop, Berlin, Germany
Structuring Space, curated by Anca Sinpalean, Artfoyer Cavigelli, Zurich, Switzerland
2010
Ready or Not- Romanian Video Art, at Videozone V, The 5th International Video Art Biennial in Israel , curated by Irina Cios, Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv, Israel
Gender Zero, POSTBOX DVD Video-Screening, curated by Sanda Watt, #4 POSTBOX
Magazine, Revista LA PLIC, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
I am Gustav von Aschenbach or How to Live you Eternity in Venice, Solo Exhibition, curated by Anca Sinpalean, Romanian Cultural Institute, Venice, Italy
Idyll, Austrian Cultural Forum, curated by Olivia Nitis, Atelier Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
2009
Only Cowards Die without Having Fun, curated by Anca Mihulet, International Center for Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania
Secret Life of Houseplants, Solo Exhibition, Teutsch House, Sibiu, Romania
2008-09
Traces: Contemporary Romanian Art, curated by Ann Albritton, Carmen Iovitu and Mirela Ivanciu, Centre International d’Art Contemporain, Pont-Aven, France, Selby Gallery- Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida, Robert Else Gallery- Sacramento State University, California, USA, UNA Galeria- National University of Arts, Bucharest, Romania
2008
The Thirteenth Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, Bari, Italy
Broken English and the Missing Piece Film Festival, Gothenburg, Sweden
2007
First Romanian Film Festival in Chicago, Roundtable Society, Chicago, USA
Master in Fine Art Thesis Exhibition, Section “Psychic Architecture”, Gallery 2, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
Soup and Tart Performance Night, curated by Michelle Tupko and A.D. Jameson, Elegant Mr. Gallery, Chicago, USA
Why No Get Away- Text Off the Page, Gallery 2, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
2006
Offset 2005, curated by Valentin Chincisan and Cosmin Moldovan, National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest, Romania, Romanian Cultural Center, London, UK, Plan B Gallery, Cluj, Romania, Nomad Festival, Bucharest, Romania,Spazi Aperti, Academia di Romania, Rome, Italy
Game 44/46, with [People], Art 44/46 Public Art Project, curated by Stuart Keeler, Chicago, USA
Park Yourself, with [People], Performances in Public Space, curated by Jenny Roberts, Chicago, USA
2005
Goldsmiths 2005, Postgraduate Thesis Exhibition, Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, UK
Anca Mihuleţ
She has been working as an art critic and curator at the Contemporary Art Gallery of the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu since 2006. She has been preoccupied in creating a theoretical platform for emerging artists and curators. She has also been involved with institutional research, museum strategies, visual inquiry and the analytic artistic approach. As curator, Anca Mihuleţ has been supporting young Romanian artists to research topics such as the implications of knowledge, history, margins and landscape, as well as to produce new works of art which talk about these issues. She has written various articles and collaborated with different cultural publications: “21st Century” magazine, “Journal for Northeast Issues”, and “Photography in Romanian Contemporary Art After 1989″, “Praesens”, “Romanian Cultural Resolution”, “The Long April”. In 2011, Anca Mihuleţ started to be interested in questioning and theoretising various curatorial contexts by participating in several fellowships and residencies at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, Seoul Art Space_Geumcheon, and Bains Connective, Brussels.
PROJECT
Poli and Mano
Thematics ‘Come Together’
Poli and Mano are two male characters discovered and impersonated by Delia Popa (Poli) and Anca Mihuleț (Mano).
In 2010 “The International Theater Festival in Sibiu” was sponsored by Rosia Montana Gold Corporation, a mining company who has been proposing a very dangerous and controversial mining project in Romania. As Anca and Delia were shocked by the aggressive sponsorship/gold mining promotion campaign, they decided to offer a direct response in form of ironic stickers. (such as:” Art must be rewarded with gold. Did you take your portion of cyanide today?/ Say yes to cyanide, Say yes to The International Theater Festival Sibiu.”)
As Sibiu’s center was under video surveillance 24/7 and the risk of being identified was high, Anca and Delia decided to use two male alter-egos to navigate the city more easily at night time. Thus Poli and Mano were “born”.
As Anca Mihuleț states*: “Poli and Mano started to build their own identities – they come from separated families from the infamous Bucharest neighbourhoods Pantelimon (Poli) and Ferentari (Mano), they address each other with ‘brother’, they are extremely loyal and dedicated to their friendship, they have their own ways of greeting each other, verbal codes, and visual interests, they listen to manele and to house music; along these characteristics, Poli and Mano are justice-makers, and as such they react when a brother is treated unfairly only because his language is not sophisticated enough or because he is listening to Manele.
(…)Poli and Mano represent the interface allowing the artist and the curator to access another reality. A reality which exists in parallel to their own and which they couldn’t enter before. In this new social and artistic reality, the visual was replaced with direct experience. It is not an artificial extension of the lived reality, but a social pocket, a space which does not pretend to be comfortable – in order for them to become Poli and Mano, the artist and the curator have studied men’s behaviour, they have trained to act like two men and equally they have generated two distinct identities.
The approach now is directed, on the one hand towards the evaluation of masculinity and the feminine, of the limits between the two sexes, and on the other hand towards the direct access to society’s peripheral zones.
Photo: Silvano Magnone – Plankton 47