Vivid Artbeat archive:

>>ECHOES OF NABI IN EMANUEL BORESCU'S ART
November 2005

>>COSTIN CRAIOVEANU REVISITED
October 2005

>>ANDREA SARCANI MEETS COSTIN CRAIOVEANU
June/July 2005

>>ART OF GLASS
May 2005

>>THE WORLD CAN BE DIFFERENT, IF WE ALLOW OURSELVES TO THINK AS MUCH
March 2005

>>IN AMONGST IT
February 2005

>>AN ALL ROUND TALENT
November 2004

>>LIVING FOR THE MOMENT
October 2004

>>FOILING THE CULT
OF THE COPY
September 2004

>>MOST DEFINITELY NOT DIGITAL
June 2004

>>SUZANA DAN'S LUSCIOUS, RICH, DREAMLIKE PAINTINGS
May 2004

Regulars
ARTBEAT
Spreading the word, beyond
Romania's borders

by Andrew Begg
December 2004

One of the many obstacles faced by artists everywhere involves the question of how to market their work - how to show the world how good they are. Romanian artists feel this all the more keenly. While forty-five years of communism was like a black hole for many local artists, with the obvious exception of the works of the sculptor Brancusi, who had to walk to Paris before making a name for himself, Romanian art has never sold well in the fairs, galleries and auction houses of the world - either before, during or since communism.

	Step forward Andreiana Mihail, whose association, -esco-art contemporain, has the potential to become a prime mover in promoting Romania 's young and most
Anca Benera: ''The Return of Okyo Mujasaky'', mixed media, 92 x 72 cm, 2004.	promising artists beyond the country's

boundaries. ''We basically began with an idea,'' she says, which was to promote the works of young Romanian artists at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Paris . ''They thought it would be a great idea, and instead of holding just the one exhibition, they said let's do a series of exhibitions; let's do six.''

This was in December 2003. The first exhibition put on by -esco-art, which then comprised Andreiana, her friend of twenty years Raluca Barb, and Dan Horja, was just two months later, and then followed five more exhibitions, one every two weeks. ''After the idea was approved we didn't have a lot of time to organise ourselves,'' says Andreiana. A very welcome helping hand had come from Eurotime, a French-based, Romanian-owned transport company, which provided bus tickets for all the artists and transported all 170 works to Paris and back.

Hundreds of people came to the exhibitions, including experts from the Centre Pompidou and the Fondation Cartier and plenty of critics and gallery owners. ''It was like mini-residences for the artists, and it was very critically well-received. We were very proud too that there were about 80 per cent French people coming to the exhibitions. And of course it was good to sell some paintings!''

In all, the works of 14 artists were exhibited, which Andreiana likens to something of an assault on the senses ñ ''a bit like the invasion of Normandy, liberating France''ñ and adds that such shock tactics meant that the word got around in Parisian art circles. ''It meant that we were able to build relations,'' she says.

One such contact was with the Paris gallery, White Elephant, whose curator attended all six shows and introduced the works of two painters into group shows in Paris . Another important contact was made with ESSEC Executive MBA, a highly regarded business school, who asked about the possibility of bringing a show to Paris as part of the MBA course. ''We were just called out of the blue, and initially thought that it was a joke, then we soon realised they were absolutely serious,'' she says of the initiative.

Nicolae Comanescu: ''Wrong Beach'', acrylic on canvas, 250 x100 cm, 2004.

When this issue of Vivid appears, Andreiana Mihail will be in Paris curating an exhibition of four artists: two painters, Anca Benera and Nicolae Comanescu, and two photographers, Alexandra Croitoru and Nicu Ilfoveanu. (Both Anca Benera and Alexandra Croitoru have been the subjects of previous Vivid ëArtbeat' features.) The exhibition which is organised and financed by ESSEC's MBA students and counts towards their overall assessment, includes about 50 works and lasts until 23rd December.

Other -esco-art contemporain initiatives have included organising for 20 drawings by Alexandru Radvan to be exhibited at Art Chicago as part of the collection of the Kontainer Gallery, a Los Angeles-based gallery, and an exhibition of works by Anca Benera and Simona Cristea called 'I find you very attractive' at the Nahvision gallery in Stuttgart.

A kind of commercial awakening as to the necessity of promoting art came to Andreiana Mihail while she was in London , where, she says, ''everything in her field of vision changed. I've traveled a lot, and found that many Romanian painters cannot possibly feel the pace of the international art world by staying in Romania. I had a shock in London, and imagined Romanian artists being there.î She says that too many local artists complain that they do not have the right conditions in which to paint. And they compete and bicker

	with one another needlessly, when they should realise that the world is becoming a smaller place and the real competition lies
Nicu Ilfoveanu: ''Parco Borghese 1'',Epson print, 110 x 40 cm, 2003.	elsewhere, outside Romania.

A presentation on -esco-art contemporain and the artists it represents can be found at its website, www.esco-art.com.

Alexandra Croitoru: from the series ''alldays'', colour photo, 100 x 35 cm, 2000 - 2004.