Art Cell – 5 years

In the culture and arts space of Bucharest there is a different kind of art gallery: Art Cell ('Celula de arta'). It is an unconventional kind of art gallery, which celebrates its fifth year. It is a fish tank gallery facing to the street, which is meant to promote the artistic message in direct contact with the public, the passers-by. To quote the gallery manifesto, this allows art works to escape the classical space of a gallery to interact with a new audience, the part of the audience that does not usually go to art galleries or art events; it wants to establish a free, direct, and non-conformist dialog. We spoke to one of the co-founders of Art Cell, visual artist Daniel Loagar, about the history of the Cell, about how it all started 5 years ago, and about the concept of the team.

“I should provide you with a bit of history, to be more explicit: the creation workshop I work in is in a culture hub in Bucharest, namely the Carol 53 hub. Various artisan artists have workshops here, they work and collaborate with other artisan artists in various areas – painting, photography, music, art using leather, metal, jewelry making, but some also restore classical bicycles. In the initial stage, Art Cell was born out of our need to express ourselves, and to show, to expose the public to what we are doing in the workshops. The gallery was set up by a group of artists, members of this hub, and in October 2017, on the White Night of Galleries, we opened officially the gallery, first with the exhibition Wood Be Nice, then the Night of Houses that same year, and we had our first performance, live painting. Shortly after, though, we realized that it is selfish to be the only ones that exhibit here, the ones in the hub. We realized that other artists want to join in, be present, to have exhibitions, and to manifest themselves through the gallery. This is how the Art Cell began, as it is known today to the public. The Art Cell is not a gallery in the classical sense of the word, for a few reasons. It is an artist run space, meaning that it is managed and organized by artists and friends, who dedicate part of their time pro bono to make it work. We have a team of people who do graphic design, social media, photo and video, web design, PR, and people who deal with logistics. We are not a large team, but we are trying to cover the whole range of needs that the gallery has. The Art Cell does not have a visiting schedule. Art objects can be seen right from the street, 24-7. Another reason for which we are not a classical type gallery is the audience of the gallery, which is very diverse. Our exhibits are consumed by both art lovers and friends of the artists, just like in a regular gallery, but also less informed people. Our exhibitions are being seen by regular passers-by, by students on their way to school, by elderly people on the way to market. Another reason to be for us, so to say, is that our gallery exhibits almost exclusively works seen for the first time, which we want very much. We want to have works made precisely for the 3-D space of the fish tank type, which our gallery is. We exhibit and promote emerging artists, who are just starting, who are still studying, or artists who have no formal training, artists who display for the first time, experimentalists, courageous artists. We want to have daring artists, artists who love a challenge, who want to collaborate, but also old time artists. We exhibit very diverse contemporary art: painting, sculpture, mixed media, installations, new media. We also host performance art, live painting, live music, interactive installations, or magazine launches.”

We asked Daniel Loagar to make a summary of what happened in the 5 years of the gallery's existence:

“Right now we have reached our 137th event, and probably one hundred artists on display. We don't have a precise count, but that's about right. Of the 137 events I would mention just a few. There would be Teodor Grigoras's performance, who shut himself inside the Art Cell for 30 hours, time in which he painted 30 paintings. There was Dorin Cucicov's new media installations, an installation that took pictures of each passer by, integrating them into a virtual gallery. We had a manifesto exhibition in support of Ukraine, which we staged in King Michael Square in Bucharest this year. We had an exhibition in collaboration with the Art Mirror Association from Cluj, dedicated to the environment, held in Chisinau, Moldova. We had a live painting event, at the Vertical Gallery opening, where all artists painted blindfolded. We had a body drawing performance with a friend of ours from Ukraine. We had an ample project called IN-TO-IT, together with the Art Student Association, which included live music broadcast by IN-TO-IT radio, an exhibition for the fine art students, and an installation for design students. We had a manifesto exhibition, Bombs and People, against the war and in support of Ukraine, the first of its kind in Romania, curated by myself with a friend. I would also like to mention the new Art Cell spaces, namely the Kulterra Gallery Art Cell pop-up windows, a collaboration between our gallery and Kulterra, which started in April 2022. We also had the Vertical Gallery for the Cell, a new gallery with the Cell brand in the Random Space courtyard, a space for art consumption. The opening of the Vertical Gallery was in May 2022.”

At the end of the discussion, artist Daniel Loagar told us what his wishes are for the Art Cell gallery for the next 5 years:

“I say we will continue down the same path. We will try to bring out in the open as many brilliant and unknown artists as we can, to experiment, to play, to have performances.” (CC)