Staycation
Lexia Hachtmann, Catinca Malaimare, Daniela Pălimariu, Ana Pascu, Lera Kelemen, Yen Chun Lin, Ioana Stanca, Ana-Maria Ștefan, Beth Hughes, Isabella Fürnkäs, Barbara Lüdde, Rachel Monosov
Ioana Stanca
12 Eyes and a hidden fire, 2021
Embroidery on velvet, silicone fiber. 345×95×22 cm
Ioana Stanca
“My works are intimate maps, tracing a geography in continuous transformation.I love diving in a medium that has been historically associated with ”a woman’s work,” using symbols ~ motifs like flowers, red manicure, vibrant colours to explore sexuality and femininity. It is an empowering statement to deliberately use so many of the clichés I was told to avoid while studying painting, a male dominated field. It feels like the self-narrative, meditative process of making an embroidery “preserves” my emotions stitch by stitch making each work a portal with healing powers.”
Bethan Hughes
Văcărești (Us), Vacaresti (You & I), 2021
Steel, mouth-blown coloured glass, custom steel frames.
48 × 33 cm each
Bethan Hughes
“In the feverish yellow flush of summer the urban delta offers itself as a zone of protection, an unanticipated space of safety for not only plant bodies but human bodies too. Embraced by the ring of concrete and steel which marks the perimeter, thirteen women carefully pick a path through the dense vegetation. Arriving at the centre, one by one they climb a wooden watchtower before coming to rest on a platform high above the water, reeds, and mud below. Here they sit, silently, and listen; to the wind and to one another.” – Bethan Hughes
Bethan Hughes
Installation View
Ana Maria Stefan
Axis Mundi, 2021
Installation with glazed terracotta: mixture of Medgidia kaolin clay, kaolin, Aghireș quartz sand, Șuncuiuș refractory clay and fired scrap. 22×22×6 cm
Ana Maria Stefan
“My work is a meditation on the continuous series of breakings/remakings, births/rebirths that the physical and emotional human (feminine) body goes through in order to get to heimat. Heimat is a german word for ‘home’ or ‘homeland’. It can express the country or place one lives in, the origins, family or ancestors that one has, and more deeply, it can translate the sense of belonging on both social and spiritual level. Where do I feel most connected? And, more importantly, is the answer to “where” an actual, physical location, or just a head space? I want to extent the word’s meaning to the idea of home body, expressing the metamorphoses that the human being undergoes until reaching a state of equilibrium. Thus, this work is a meditation on the ever changing human body and psyche, in its constant oscillation between power and vulnerability. Using a slow Transylvanian medieval craftsmanship, Saxon terracotta stove tile making, I want to embody the solid-fragile opposition that is essential for living, also touching on concepts like migration, multiculturalism, personal identity and womanhood. The tiles will embody the feminine energy of the stove as a warm containing and yet dangerous space. Transformation is sacred, cathartic, painful, constant. Axis Mundi is about finding this equilibrium in a constant state of change by reconnecting to the centre, the source, the womb.”
Yen Chun Lin
We met through dreamscapes, 2021
Silver, soundscape, red thread, dreams.
130×8 cm
An encounter in dreamscapes, 2021
Soundscape
Yen Chun Lin
“I encountered a dragonfly in reality who spent his last 12 hours on my left hand the whole period, that I was dinnering, walking, resting with him hanging on one hand. I sculpted this piece for the same amount of time only with my right hand on the left hand.” -Yen Chun Lin
Lexia Hachtmann
Rabe, 2021 and Mann, 2021
Tempera on Canvas
30 × 25 cm each
Lera Kelemen
Mark the ground with thin, soft thread, 2021
Installation, metal structure, laser cut on ply, patchwork, print on textile
Lera Kelemen
“The curtain represents the liminal space that separates two worlds. By covering a window, the curtain becomes a surface that mediates between indoors and outdoors, between the house and the world outside it. A piece of fabric is extracted from a room, then taken out into the woods and stained, soaked and dragged through the mud, then taken back in and integrated into a domestic object such as a blanket, a curtain, a cosy or a quilt. Through this process, the cloth is taken from a familiar realm and permeated with histories of an uncanny place, a foreign territory that doesn’t resemble the intimacy of a residence. The work analyses domestic practices performed by women, particularly in Victorian times, altogether reflecting on the sense of freedom and imprisonment within households. Dominated by patriarchal structures, the household was a space where women would feel both safe and trapped. They were caught pulling a curtain and looking out the window bewildered by the uncanny world that unfolded beyond the comfort of their home, yearning for an escape. On the backdrop of recent lockdowns, women around the world were once again pushed towards finding liberating activities within their homes, while interaction with the outside world took place only through the frame of their bedroom window.”
Barbara Ludde
Sky is The Limit, 2021
Installation, including 12 silk scarves printed then colored by hand (each 45 × 45 cm), steel wire, hooks.
Barbara Ludde
Installation view
“Most of my figurations seem fearless and strong, but at second glance they are just as fragile. I play with the power of opposites such as socially influenced ideas of beauty and ugliness, strength and weakness. My figurations defy a clear gender classification and the associated characteristics that are determined by mainstream society. In a subtle way, I am questioning the construct of gender.”
Barbara Lüdde
Can I be me?, 2020 and Love hurts-never again, 2021
Ink on paper.
40 × 30 cm (framed)
Ana Pascu
Transfixing Shells, 2021
Installation, textile and plaster, video projection
Ana Pascu
‘Transfixing Shells’ proposes a neutral space, in which two spheres, of the digital and the material, collide while fragmenting each other. The body explores their meeting point as it becomes more fragile in the process. The contrast functions as a fundamental mechanism in the process of identity creation of the space as well as the body’s- the duality of the elements found in the piece talk about a deep search that transcends the boundaries of social classification.
Ana Pascu
(Details)
Daniela Palimariu
Several members of one family are born from an unfolded packaging shape. Only one of the members is the original, the others are its resembling heirs. Through all the Families in this series, Pălimariu’s work looks for signs of the familiar in areas ruled by pure practicalities.
This particular Family is made of two, which could imply any number of relationships between the members. They also benefit from various folds and cavities that give them depth and multiple reflections, to speak about the complexities of all relationships, but especially of family ones.
For the Staycation exhibition, the work is presented inside a Shelter, to diffuse light and color, to protect and hug.
Daniela Palimariu
FAMILY VIII (EARS), 2021
Stainless steel – mirror finish
2 pieces: 130 × 74 × 3 cm / 124 × 85 × 3 cm
Installation View at Sandwich Offspace
Catinca Malaimare
Clumsy, blinking, swirling machines, 2021
HD dual-monitor, color, with sound. 10:03 min.
Lexia Hachtmann
Holding Room I, II, III, IV, 2021
Oil on canvas, 250 × 85 cm and 250 × 75 cm
Lexia Hachtmann
The series ‘Holding Room’ is comprised of four paintings, each suspended from the ceiling like a curtains, floating in the room, just above the floor. The four long and narrow formats comprise an inner space within the exhibition through which the viewer can navigate. The paintings deal with the idea of an ‘inner house’, a sacred space that the individual has control over and references the depiction of the Abaton found in Orthodox tradition where it has often been depicted as an image in which the patron of the Church is holding a chapel in his hands. The Abaton describes an inaccessible area behind the altar in orthodox churches. It defines a sacred room reserved for god – a place in which the priest is allowed to change into his clothes for prayer but otherwise is not used for any other worshipping exercises. The Abaton in this sense is an off-space and a place not to be entered by the woman; a place of restriction and sacredness. Using this interesting motif as a starting point for the work I aimed at translating this religious imagery towards a universal, visual language that ask questions about control, home and accessibility of spaces while trying to build a universal, subjective, inclusive and empowering female space in the exhibition.”
Lexia Hachtmann
Roter Kragen, 2021
Oil and Tempera on canvas
45 × 35 cm
Lexia Hachtmann
Rücken, 2021, 20×16cm, tempera on canvas,
Schöne Hände, 2021, 10×10cm, 10×10cm, tempera on canvas
In bed, 2021, 20×25cm, tempera on canvas
Waves, 2021, 45×35cm, oil and tempera on canvas
Knives, 2020, 20×25cm, oil on canvas
Bootsteps, 2021, 5×30, oil on canvas
Isabella Fürnkäs
Open Secrets, 2021
Video installation, stainless steel structure, silk cloth, projection,
video 8:45min color/sound, loop.
150 × 100 × 100 cm
Isabella Fürnkäs
The work Open Secrets reflects questions on an intimate space and how subconscious memory is inscribed in the body.
Do we own our memories or are they living somewhere on the border of ourselves?
A tent like structure is covered with fragmented skin colored silk cloth onto which a video is projected. A female voice hushes phrases such as “Drowning in your secret. Hollow pockets. Irresponsible blood vessels float. And linger in my bloodstream. Kissing flesh.“. It can be heard in a low crispy tone coming from the inside of the structure. A photograph of The British crown jewels is sewed in a half-transparent pouch on the back of the tent – a symbol of power lying directly under your skin.
- Isabella Fürnkäs
Ana Maria Stefan
Axis Mundi II, 2021
Installation with glazed terracotta: mixture of Medgidia kaolin clay, kaolin, Aghireș quartz sand, Șuncuiuș refractory clay and fired scrap. 22×22×6 cm
Barbara Lüdde
There Is No Such Thing As, 2021
Ink on paper
25 × 25 and 5 × 25 cm (framed)
Ioana Stanca
Strange Flowers (Ai grijă de tine), 2021
Embroidery on linen, 57×42, artist frame, wood.
75×65×3 cm
Rachel Monosov
Life Between Lives, 2021
Archival pigment prints framed individually.
Each 40 × 41 cm,
Rachel Monosov
Life Between Lives, 2021,
Archival pigment prints (framed individually).
Each 40 × 41 cm,
Catinca Malaimare
Seedy Pink, 2021
Live Performance and Neon Light
Installation, with rotating platform, AIRLITE Balloon LED at Malmaison Studios as part of Sandwich Offspace Staycation Vernissage
Catinca Malaimare
The screen is still wet; watching a performance we witness time diluting, slipping between location and gaze, reinforced by the movement of a performer that seems to slip from TV screen in Clumsy, blinking, swirling machines (2021), and into a smoky pink and purple bathed hallway, cuddling with neon lights, spinning fetishism, lifting herself up upon her collaborator’s tender frame, in Seedy Pink (2021), a performance where techno bodies aim to drop their terrestrial attributes to the ground. Our appetite opens wide for making eye contact with an impulsive body shifting between participation and detachment, a slipping, hidden negotiator for attention in the midst of a techno-sensual affair.
- Catinca Malaimare
STAYCATION
A project by CTG Collective, Sandwich and Catinca Tabacaru Gallery
Artists:
Yen Chun Lin, Isabella Fürnkäs, Lexia Hachtmann, Bethan Hughes, Lera Kelemen, Barbara Lüdde, Catinca Mălaimare, Rachel Monosov, Daniela Pălimariu, Ana Pascu, Ioana Stanca, Ana-Maria Ștefan
The opening of the exhibition takes place on two evenings:
December 14, 2021 | 6-9PM
Galeria Catinca Tabacaru
Strada Mexic 1, Bucharest
December 15, 2021 | 6-9PM
Sandwich Offspace
Malmaison Studios, 2nd floor
Calea Plevnei 137C, Bucharest
CTG Collective, Sandwich and Catinca Tabacaru Gallery are pleased to announce the opening of Staycation, an exhibition mounted across two Bucharest spaces – Galeria Catinca Tabacaru and Sandwich Offspace – featuring 6 Berlin-based and 6 Romanian artists. While the exhibition is the most visible part of the project, it is also a direct response to a week-long Symposium that took place in July 2021 in Bucharest, introducing all participants to the City and to each other.
Sourcing a connection between the current global pandemic and feminist thought does not yield immediate satisfaction. How does baking a focaccia, drifting through Delta Văcărești, or collective napping connect to, say, ecology, environmentalism and solidarity? The Staycation dialogues moved as fast as slow-living can, having a gentle rhythm, discussion at its core, and the present moment, as important references in the ethos of its resulting exhibition.
Five months later, the 12 artists come together to share their reflections on that time and space spent together. Addressing concepts including the current state of control on movement and travel, and the inevitably human and ecological consequences of the current pandemic, the exhibition reveals opposing and contradictory forces that mutually shape each other: personal vs. universal, collective vs. individual, private vs. public.
This group exhibition addresses these dualities not simply through verbal correlation, but through an immersion into the physical practices of each artist in dialogue with a place they inhabit(ed) alone and together. This visual dialogue operates as an experiment documenting the uncertainty of our present and near future. It examines concepts spanning motherhood in the art-world context, the social roles taken up or inherited within domestic space, living and working within “the center” or its periphery, and the holy balance between leisure and work.
Staycation is an utopian project in which the dérive is employed throughout its general approach. These women’s lives are immersed in the everyday while they question the psycho-social and ecological layers of their collaborative living. Striving for unity and inquisitiveness in the experience of leisure, they move forward together in this longer-term project, cultivating lasting artist-to-community relationships.
Partnered with Goethe Institut Bucharest
For more information please contact us at
info@catincatabacaru.com + hello@sandwichgallery.ro
STAYCATION is a project co-created by Rachel Monosov, Catinca Tabacaru, and Daniela Pălimariu.
PART I: Berlin >> Bucharest
July 2021 – January 2022
MEET THE ARTISTS OF STAYCATION
February 3rd, 2022 | 6:30PM
ZOOM EVENT
The artists of Staycation’s in-depth discussion on spending a week together for a leisure-filled Symposium; making art in and about Bucharest; transnational collaborations (especially during the current pandemic); and the unique experience created by an all-women gathering.
February 3rd, 2022 | 18:30
WALK THROUGH AND DISCUSSION
January 27th, 2022 | 18:00
Galeria Catinca Tabacaru
Strada Mexic 1, Bucharest
Artists Daniela Pălimariu, Ana Pascu, loana Stanca, and Ana-Maria Stefan lead tours through the exhibition offering insight into each of their works. Afterwards, the artists will join Catina Tabacaru to discuss the themes of Staycation including the state of control on movement and travel, and the human and ecological consequences of the current pandemic era, motherhood in the art-world context, living and working within “the center” or its periphery, and the holy balance between leisure and work.
Exhibition walk through and artist talk with the Bucharest-based artists Daniela Pälimariu, Ana Pascu, loana Stanca, and Ana-Maria Stefan, in conversation with Catinca Tabacaru.
Catinca Tabacaru Gallery
CURATOR’S TOUR
January 29th, 2022 | 14:00
Sandwich Offspace
Malmaison Studios, Calea Plevnei 137C
Daniela Pălimariu and Catina Tabacaru host a curatorial tour of the Staycation Exhibition offering insights into the curatorial connections between the Exhibition’s works, collaborative organization, building space as meeting point for art and community, and working within an all-women context.
Curator’s Tour with Catinca Tabacaru and Daniela Pälimariu, Sandwich Offspace