Open Letter to:

Unicredit Tiriac Bank SA

Str. Ghetarilor nr. 23-25,

Sector 1, Cod 014106,

Bucuresti, Romania

Bucharest,  22nd March 2011,

I would like to file an official complaint following the unpleasant treatment I experienced on March 10th 2011 in Pavillion Unicredit (Centre of Contemporary Art and Culture) in Bucharest during the opening of the exhibition ‘Just do it. Biopolitical Branding’.

My name is Valentina Desideri, I am an Italian performer based in France and I was in Bucharest to visit some friends. I address this letter to you because I have got to know that the man screaming at me that evening was the Director of Pavillion Unicredit, Mr. Razvan Ion,  so it would make no sense to send my complaint to him. Since your bank is their main sponsor and promoter, I thought that you should be informed about the event.

On March 10th at around 19h I, together with three friends, entered Paviliion Unicredit. We were holding some Champagne bottles and of course, they were closed. Our intention was to celebrate the opening of the exhibition with our friends that were part of the exhibition, either at Pavillion, if possible, or later somewhere else.    

As we stepped in the building, we were directly aggressed by Mr. Razvan Ion, who screaming in Romanian, ran towards us, took the bottles out of our hands and throw some of them in the street (also hitting a car, as I later understood).

The attempts of my two romanian friends to explain him that we will not consume the bottles if that is not allowed, that we could put them in the lockers, or just any attempt to defend ourselves was useless. Mr. Razvan Ion continued to scream, making a huge scene, trying to humiliate us in front of the numerous public present at the exhibition, and in general, just creating a rather distasteful atmosphere.

Only another woman, a foreigner I guess, since she spoke in english, tried to defend us, stating that this was unbelievable and that it was the last time she would ever step in Pavillion Unicredit.

Although my understanding of Romanian is rather little, I could understand his argument that Pavillion was ‘‘mi casa’’, his house, treating us as if we were invading some kind of private property while that was clearly the public opening of an exhibition. He even threatened to call the police, which would have been very appropriate since the only violation committed there, it was the stealing and breaking of our bottles of Champagne.

After screaming and throwing out our bottles, Mr. Razvan Ion led us out of the building. Since it was impossible to have a more polite and calm conversation with him, shortely after we left.

To bring bottles of Champagne and invite people to celebrate the exhibition was a symbolic statement that we decided to utter after other unpleasant events that took place before the opening of the exhibition.

The friends with whom I entered Pavillion that evening, were previously invited to be part of the same exhibition with their project ‘Canditatul la Presidentia’. All agreements were reached with the curator Ms. Simina Niagu, but just a week before the opening, the director Mr. Razvan Ion wrote them an email to cancel their presence from the exhibition.

Moreover the friends we wanted to celebrate with, The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, whose work was still shown in the exhibition, had harsh discussions with Mr. Razvan Ion because of an even more problematic event.

I cite here the official communicate that the Bureau of Melodramatic Research published on their website:

In the morning before the opening of the exhibition "Just do it. Biopolitical Branding", the Bureau of Melodramatic Research was personally announced by the director of PAVILION UNICREDIT that Simina Neagu, as curator of this particular exhibition and assistant director at the same institution, would be fired, if we don't exclude from our work all the facts and figures about the budget of the exhibition (that is the exact sum of our fee plus production costs). Moreover, we were informed that if we didn't agree upon this condition, the Director would additionally cancel the opening due at 7 PM the same day.

The aforementioned financial infos were part of our work and since we haven't signed any contract or confidentiality agreement, we didn't expect any opposition on the part of the institution. Following tense negotiations, we were told that we could publish the budget, only if we include all the current expenses of PAVILION for the period of the exhibition (electricity, salaries of Pavilion's employees etc). The director of PAVILION calculated an amount of 1400 Euro per artist/artist group. This amount is 7 times higher than our production costs+fee altogether. And it is 100 Euro less than the whole exhibition's initially announced budget (at least considering what we were told by the PAVILION employees when we were invited to take part in this project). Since we were interested only in the publishing of the artist fee+production costs and weren't allowed to disclose the detailed budget or any parts of it, the 1400 Euro were of no use for our work. Nevertheless, we had to publish this mystified amount of 1400 Euro, in order to avoid the firing of the curator and the canceling of the exhibition.

Our maybe provocative, but still, purely symbolical action of showing up with Champagne at the opening of ‘Just do it. Biopolitical Branding’ triggered an extremely authoritarian and violent reaction from Mr. Razvan Ion. This is unacceptable, unjustified and, from my experience, unseen in any art or cultural space anywhere in a democratic country.  

I thought you should be informed about these events, especially because by searching on the internet I found other articles about artists denouncing similar problems with Pavillion Unicredit.

Here the links:

http://eipcp.net/policies/vilensky/en

http://miscprojects.com/2010/06/13/getting-real-at-bucharest-biennale/ (the last part of the article is dedicated to another drama)

http://thebureauofmelodramaticresearch.blogspot.com/2011/03/sufletul-sustenabilitatii.html

http://postspectacle.blogspot.com/

I hope that this official complaint will stimulate you (or others) to search for more transparency in the management of Pavillion Unicredit and that the kind of behavior shown by Mr. Razvan Ion at the opening, will never repeat. It would be a pity when the valuable support you provide for contemporary art would be shadowed by bad management.

I am available for any further clarification and I am waiting for your reply,

this letter has been also published on the web (https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1BbrXUGooOqIIlfpZMYy3PIUi68UC0R7b0A7Z7IaPV1A) and it is circulating through email lists and social networks.

Best regards,

Valentina Desideri