Modern Art in today’s Romania

The Art Machine project

Ion Puican, 02.07.2022, 14:00

What would a world look like, where contemporary art works could be purchased from the automatic machine placed in a subway station, in the office buildings hallway, or in a mall ? We can have a glimpse of that discovering Art machine, a project carried by the three contemporary artists, members of the Pink Pill group. It is a project encouraging the sound art consumption through the artists direct contact with the lay public, through an automatic machine with works of art. About what exactly the project is about, we sat down and talked to visual artist Alexandru Claudiu Maxim:

“Art Machine is an art vending machine where you can find limited series of 100 small works created by artists. The works are original, they are handmade. It is genuine art. The dimensions are those of a calling card and for the sum of 10 lei, around 2 Euros, you can purchase a work from the artists you like or whom you want to discover. It is also a curatorial concept meant to set up a connection between contemporary artists and a public that is interested in getting to know the domain. It also works as a subjective catalogue, which we present and say: in our opinion, thats what is worth buying, as we speak. And there is also a game to be played, that of collecting miniature art, a game we consider necessary to develop a variety of ways to consume art. It can be found in the bookshop of mall in Bucharest. “

What is the projects curatorial vision? How are ideas chosen, or the works and the artists who end up in the contemporary art automatic vending machine? Alexandru Claudiu Maxim once again:

“The overall curatorial vision, as we speak, is provided by Marian Codrea, himself a visual artist and a sculptor. As for the other Pink Pill, members, that is Beaver and myself, we also contribute suggestions, but for their most part, its with him the discussions with artists are initiated. What I can say, though, is that were searching for daring, original artists, with a peculiar style, or proposals that tie in perfectly fine with the idea of a vending machine and miniature works. There were cases when we were searched on the Instagram by the very people who even now do not see themselves as artists, but who had very good ideas and some of them even ended up in the machine. Such an idea was Syd Buzoianus, who during the lockdown came up with the suggestion that we make a plain tickets collection whose destination were not only todays places alone, it also went way back, in the past, in certain cultural ages, but also in the future, to other planets, to states of happiness, ecstasy or to films. We grew mighty fond of that concept and we accepted it, for its originality. “

We live in a world imbued with the social media, materialism, products, consumerism. Could it be feasible, that particular mix of the essence of consumerism (the automatic machine) and art in its own right, as an expression of cultural and moral values?

Alexandru Claudiu Maxim:

“In todays consumerism, I would include the project as a sound alternative regarding the consumption of art. It is a project enabling people to get access to original art, and not to copies that oversaturate already. Even though Art machine makes use of the consumerists presentation, its all about that particular kind of materialism in the sense of love and respect for the object, its also about care and its protection thanks to its being unique. As city-dwellers, I think we cannot escape consumerism, and the fight to get the publics attention is big. We believe this project should create communities of artists and art lovers. We target people who are open and eager to know many things, people, who, perhaps, are interested in contemporary art, but they dont know how to approach it, since the milieu is sometimes opaque. For them, “Art Machine” could be a gateway to that end. In March 2019 the first “Art Machine” prototype was made public, as part of the, “Pink Pill Pastila Roz – The Resolution Will Be Supervised”, project venued by the 030202 Workshop, an area coordinated by Mihai Zgondoiu. It was one of the first exhibitions, mounted by the Pink Pill group in Bucharest. Six months later, in September 2019, as part of “Art Safari”, at the super-contemporary art exhibition themed “Young Blood, Art of Your Time”, curated by Mihai Zgondoiu, “Art Machine” is a functional art object, with a professional machinery in it. The works it dispatched back then cost 1 leu, 10 or 50 Lei (that is between around 50 Eurocents and 10 Euro), actually according to visitors choice. We decided it should be up to them, as to how they think contemporary art is worth. There wasnt any difference in the work they got, it was only their perception of its value. Of the 700 works we got ready for them, with us, alone, with the Pink Pill, all of them were sold out from the very first day. And thats how the three of us became the art machine the produced works day in, day out. The idea was so good that other artists got involved, they helped us, there were also ordinary people, visitors of Art Safari, who had at the bar in the courtyard. small talk, and a felt-tip pen. In ten days, we succeeded to sell three thousand works and run out of ideas. Since August 2020, “Art Machine” își has been changing its trajectory towards todays direction, that of developing a community in order to propose a new way of consuming contemporary art. The number of artists who got involved in our projects is continuously growing. Initially, we worked with fine and graphic artists, in a bid to support this idea of original art. And here I can mention the Square Cat, Obert, Teodora Gavrilă or Irina Iliescu, but we also worked with photographers and directors.”

Here is artist Alexandru Claudiu Maxim once again, this time sharing the creators vision of the projects future prospects:

“We see the project as being developed in other cities as well, mainly in those with academic fine arts education programmes : Cluj, Timișoara or Iași. Pursuing the idea of creating communities, other “Art Machines”, that is, it should be curated by the people who know the place, with artists of the place. We also mull the construction of a new machine that can dispatch works with a size larger than that of a post card. “

(EN)