● Project promoter: Suprainfinit Gallery
● Project partners: Kjersti Vetterstad, Fundația MARe, Art Encounters Foundation
● Total project value: 933830.53 lei (190.759,47 euro)
● Grant value: 840447.48 lei (171.683,52 euro)
● Duration: 16 months
● Location for project implementation: Bucharest (RO), Timișoara (RO), Oslo (NO)
● Website: www.suprainfinit.com
● Facebook: www.facebook.com/suprainfinitgallery
The project Marathon of Art Practices (MAP), developed by Suprainfinit Gallery, presents a series of events (exhibitions, workshops, talks, reading groups, screenings etc.) that together aim to reconnect the aesthetic experience generated by the interaction with contemporary artworks to a broader conversation about the creation of a sustainable economic ecosystem in the cultural sector. On the one hand, MAP works to change the wider public’s perception about contemporary art consumption and to educate collectors and investors in order to create viable mechanisms on the Romanian contemporary art market. On the other hand, the projects equally tackles the necessity of artists’ and curators’ professionalisation in areas such as cultural entrepreneurship, project management, and cultural marketing. As the project is running, the wider public and the targeted groups will benefit from the cultural resources and know-how of Suprainfinit Gallery, that ever since its founding in 2015 has had the mission of promoting young emerging artists, of consolidating a dynamic art market at the local level, and of visually educating the wider audience.
As such, by its end date, the MAP project is looking to achieve the following: to help 15
emerging artists and 5 emerging curators sharpen their knowledge and practical skills in
cultural entrepreneurship, management, and cultural marketing, and 30 new potential contemporary art collection by fostering a dialogue with well-known Romanian and foreign experts; to manage the artistic careers of the artists; to exhibit contemporary art works in 9 exhibitions; to support the formation of unmediated connections between the public and the emerging artists and curators via the artist talks and the events that will take place before and after the exhibition openings.
During the 17 months of the project, 8 curated exhibitions will take place at Suprainfinit Gallery in Bucharest and one exhibition will be organised together with the partner Art Encounters Foundations in Timișoara. The exhibitions will follow themes such as gender fluidity and queer lived experiences, new technologies and the posthuman, the spaces and architectures of postsocialism, female monstrosity and the prosthetic body, contemporary ecological thought.
Additionally, MAP explores the types of information exchanges and actions that partake in the making of a contemporary art exhibition by integrating paracuratorial practices that were underrepresented during the COVID-19 lockdown period, such as live performances, reading groups, artist talks, screenings. These events will be highly interdisciplinary and will have the additional purpose of supporting an as large as possible number of cultural workers from different domains, whose activities have been impacted by the pandemic.
The Norwegian partner Kjersti Vetterstad will add value to the project by offering a mentoring programme to one of the members of our team, a traineeship that will take place in Oslo for 7 days, ensuring an exchange of knowledge and experience in contemporary art gallery management, cultural entrepreneurship and market mechanisms. The partner MARe will host two of the formative sessions for the 30 collectors and will be involved in the organising of two guided museum tours. The partner Art Encounters Foundation will promote the project and will co-organise an exhibition in Timișoara.