bulina albastra

The blue spots signalize the aesthetic earthquake that has been shaking the Romanian cities for the past 15 years. The elements involved in this cataclysm are noiseproof window panes, rigips, sandstone, the residual space left behind by the communist urbanism, a plethora of glass facades, fractions of the television’s visual culture, euphoric demolitions, cages for bodyguards, plastic plants, black marble, adornments made of stainless metal and ideas about architecture that defy any norm by means of which a city exists and develops usually. It felt imperative that I react to the suffocating ugliness of numerous buildings that were constructed in these last few years.

The spots indicate danger and I believe that the peril of aesthetical degradation is just as menacing as the risk of an earthquake. The red spots tell you to stay away, the blue ones urge you to take a stand.

A project by Daniel Gontz and Gianina Carbunariu

e 101

The performance suggests a contamination between the different times of recent history, an ambiguous gesture that can cause panic or joy, an attempt at reviving the tissue of the city affected by necrosis, an advertising campaign for a missing product, a question about solidarity in the torpid Romania of 2007.

the performance was sponsored by chivas and supported by h’art gallery

remake

SubReal – Framing Bucharest

Vlad Nanca and Daniel Gontz

“The remake of the two photographs closes, in a sense, an era: it renders the model classical by the fact that it has triggered a reproduction. It forces the previous generation into a “master” status, untouchable but also distant. Gontz’s maneuver simulates the canon – first reproduced, then pushed away through acts of differentiation. “

rel tvr

“the relation between national tv and romanian history for the last 50 years .”
all images were made on lenticular prints creating the illusion of video sequences. Most of the installation has been stolen by the employs of TVR

market

“A project that interrogates contemporary forms of knowledge production and distribution. It also indicates the rather unflattering fact that these processes today resemble knowledge marketing. “Knowledge is power” has been interpreted differently in recent years, after Lyotard’s statement that knowledge and power are “two sides of the same question”.  In Gontz’s manipulated photographs of supermarkets, the product types have been re-labeled as academic disciplines. And we can safely assume that the giant retail store is surrounded by smaller ones, trading in niche forms of knowledge and all sorts of specialist products – the new delicatessen of thought. The supermarkets suggest that forms of production and division of knowledge proliferate today in accordance with maps not necessarily academic, with new interests, instruments and criteria, that the gap between radicality and advertising progressively diminishes..”

by Mihnea Mircan

poltur

The project of a virtual traveling agency is an ironic analysis of the Romania political scene and of its reflection in the media. Our proposal of a political tourism agency is similar to the extreme sport tours or the cultural traveling packages. We address to those who wish to witness and experiment the transition from communism to democracy, the development of democracy and how the transition actually feels like. Surely all this is purely fictional and this agency is solely an art project.

http://www.mip.at/creations/interventionen-in-progress-40

Trans 1.0

“The space created by the installation shows individuals in everyday situations within their identity generating environment. It is a project about privacy and contemporary living, about intrusion and illusion, about the visible ego.” by Cosmin Costinas, curator

art past projects

2005 – Hotel Gontz

Any event be it cultural, artistic or scientific needs some sort of a grand opening party. After its ending, everybody seems to loose interest in the actual exhibit. To counteract this trend Hotel Gontz will consist of just such a party with every event and participant being part of it. The whole will be nothing less than an extended party on several floors, rooms, lobby’s and so on. Hotel Gontz builds on a very special culture of amusement allowing for innovation, implementation and an intense collaboration between artists and designers of different disciplines

2004 – Trans 0.5

“this projects helps you imagine what lies beyond the solid, concrete structures. “ … “TRANS makes it possible to figure out a way to fulfill contemporary desires and fantasies about the building’s interior. Whenever your sight sense becomes impeded, other ways of seeing seem necessary, even ways mimicking extasensorial capacities come into play”
by Stefan Tiron, curator

2004 – SpTv

SPOILER TV is pure diversity. SPOILER TV is the exact opposite of regular TV. It shows videos and films that have been worth producing, eluding the fate of becoming commissioned clichés. SPOILER TV thrives on the diversity of a digitalized culture, a large creative source evident in its content. It creates a non-commercial space outside cheap mainstream programs. SPOILER TV is a product of Internet culture and will develop accordingly. SPOILER TV is a sample of that creative intellectual potential out there – wherever that is.
Spoiler TV is open source internet Tv. Everybody can join us and became a broadcaster.

2003 – Rel 1.2

“at the bottom there is always the common man and what we all hope is to get up. if we follow the right way is another question. but at least we try but at the end there is only a totem, a dead end. and yet we still try.”

2002 – Sleep

2002 – Connections

this work belong now to the national museum of contemporary arts, romania

2001 – Diary