Aliens Anonymous interview Da...

The Aliens Anonymous interviews Dan Perjovschi (draft for Quoango, December 2007)

"Ex Oriente Lux" - is the light coming from east?

Nope. But cash is pouring in.

We have heard about the avant-garde movement “paradoxism” born in the

eighties in Romania, a protest against totalitarianism, based on the very contradictions in the society it sprung from. Do you have a relation to this movement?

Maybe you got the country wrong. There was no artistic movement in the eighties in Romania. Everybody was in deep shit and artists even deeper. No dissidents among the visual artists. No protest. Just pure plain obedience. Romanian communism went ultra nationalistic with North Korean Aesthetics. All citizens had to sing, dance or paint. They had no other choice and they had to sing, paint and dance for or in the name of

the dictator.

So I know nothing about any paradox movement. What I know was that I had no toilet paper, no soap and I was freezing to death together with all my other 5 students pals. I shared the one bedroom apartment along the corridor opposite to the sole toilet working from the 4th floor building in the city of Iasi. At 8 pm sharp the electricity stops. At 10 pm it may return. Or not. The only important thing was to survive with the brains intact. Nobody made it. We were all affected and 17 years later is still shows: trust nobody, respect nothing.

According to our sources paradoxism was invented by Romanian

mathematician/writer Florentin Smarandache (1954), but perhaps it wasn't that well known... He fled Romania in 1988 and ended up in USA. Anyway,

Smaranchache wrote that "we lived in that society of a double life: an

official one - propagated by the political system, and another one real. In

mass-media it was promulgated that 'our life is wonderful', but in reality

'our life was miserable'. The paradox flourishing!" This is pretty much what you say as well. Any more comments on this?

I really do not think it was a movement. The recent Official Rapport published by the National Committee of Studies on Communism (2007) who scan the dictatorial society and list all the dissidents movement never mention it. Maybe it was group of mathematicians…or a group of poets… The movement never made it to the general knowledge as the other individual or groups of opponents of the system. But mister Smarandache was right and to the point. That paradox was felt by millions by Romanians. It was the worst time of my life and the official media depicts it as the “golden age”!

But you, for example, survived… What is the fuel that makes a dissident even if society teaches you nothing is wrong – is there such an independent phenomena like "common sense" for example. A natural sense of proportions...

I was never a dissident. That’s why, nostalgically, my partner and I define our opposition to the State Culture Policy as dizzydent (from being dizzy, not knowing who your enemies are, seeing your companions become rigid and official etc). Yes, there was a common sense. Life became so ugly, the fear so widespread, the shortage spread so that it was obvious what was bad and what was good. Maybe under that pressure some stuff (art, behavior, text) looked better than it actually was…but we did not have much choice.

We heard that both you and your partner, artist Lia Perjovskchi, mentor emergent artists in Romania. Can you tell us about this?

I mentor by default. I got lucky exhibiting my art abroad and therefore was exposed to new ideas and practices. Then I distribute what I have, and this includes lending books and/or video tapes.

Lia, my partner established an archive of contemporary art (CAA) which later became a center for art analysis (CAA). This was an informal platform for sharing knowledge and for discussion and resistance. CAA had organized numerous debates, lectures and exhibitions, printed and distributed free newspapers with stuff one cannot find in Romania. She and I went on to support independent artists and curators, people out of the official state institutions network. We get friendly with unfashionable artists and boring serious thinkers. We also link people and institutions from other Romanian cities in a sort of against capital network. It was all private, but a very enthusiastic enterprise. After some very hectic years, we still do it, but in a low key.

We always support artists out of the mainstream, independent spaces and projects, artists without money and projects not in the news. We provide expertise, debating ground and most importantly: we function as sparring partners… From a certain angle what we did the last decade can be seen as an informal alternative education. The thing is we did not teach but we also learned.

From every generation of graduates somebody will knock on our door and get free coaching and critique. The last years CAA became Center for Art Analysis and turned into a more political framework. At a certain point it had preserved a small and unique space for criticism in Bucharest. It became one of the alternatives to the huge centralized state museum. For Romania, a post communist society badly hit by rough capitalism, CAA activity is essential.

The art scene in Romania expanded and got cool. It is still a misery to be an artist but if you are a smart and quick you might find spots to live. Some good exhibitions got established, some strong art magazines and new names come along. The State created the National Museum of Contemporary Art and placed it in the Parliament Building, a move that cut the scene in two. Antagonism may not be so bad because both sides got good things. There is quite an energy going on, a couple of galleries, one off-space, a few noticeable projects, a video here a photo there, some paintings in the Basel Art fair, one 70ties guru in Documenta, the West discovering of Tristan Tzara, Constantin Brancusi and Andrei Cadere being Romanians.

But for my taste it’s a bit of a set up. Yeah, yeah, the press is looking (Flash Art, Frieze), young art start to sell a bit, Romanians get selected here and there. But. If you really look how society is built up there is no real space for a visual artist. But this may be true for other cities and continents as well.

You mention the contemporary social context as crucial for your

work. Is the making of a political statement more important for you than the making of an aesthetic one? Are they separated, or the same?

I do not think they are separate. I do create a certain aesthetic. Art brut meeting graffiti and cartoon. There is a structure (mainly conceptual) and a composition (jazz like) in what I do. But my main interest is in what I communicate and how good I am in pinning down the meaning. If this requires ugly, sketches and quick drawings so be it.

You must be combing the newspapers constantly. Is it true that you

read the papers in several languages everyday?

When I do a project I read 3-5 newspaper per day (English, French and some time Italian, Spanish or German, The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais, Newsweek, Iht and some locals, plus internet, blogs etc). I also watch TV international news channels. This goes on for a week or two or a month when I build the project. That week/month I see everything in drawing format (all discussions, settings and happenings). After I finish the project I need to get out of that stage. For a while I stop - until the next project.

We saw both your contributions in Venice and loved them. The mixture of humor, art and politics - so clever! How do you find the Biennale circuit? Was it an easy place to work in?

Later texts and analyses from people I respect rate biennials as part of the neo liberal market system. Biennials flourish, look alike and have too much emphasis on the touristy marketable side (branding, sponsor, local administration). It seems that big shows lost their aim and went global with no reason other than funding.

This critique is valid and has made me rethink the overall trend in the arts. But I cannot stop wondering how come the minute I got on the international scene (biennials, big shows), the art scene suddenly is bad, selling art is wrong and being popular is dangerous… For the art I do, biennials constitute platforms of communication with huge visibility. I use them with passion.

Some biennials are better than others (see Istanbul 5 and Periferic 7 in Iasi Romania) and to my surprise the small biennials in remote places can sometimes be more interesting than huge glamorous events such as Venice. By the way, in Venice because of my in between location (I never made it to the Arsenale), I got some how more (intellectual) space to act. Sorry to disappoint the ever-angry critics, but I felt good and challenged and that showed in the work.

Do you think they would be open to having a pavilion for Aliens?

This is a great idea after the big failures like Roma pavilion and the Continental pavilion showing Andy Warhol, Africa or the puzzling private collection representing Ukraine with Sam Taylor Wood. But one question will stand: The death of national representation was proclaimed some time after the Berlin wall fell… so how come there are more and more national pavilions in every Venice Biennial? How come it’s so attractive?

I think an Alien Pavilion exists, It is called Basel Art Fair.