THE FIRST ROMA PAVILION
LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA 2007
Edited by Tímea Junghaus and Katalin Székely
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 12
Foreword 13
Paradise Lost – The First Roma Pavilion by Tímea Junghaus 16
Statements 24
Second Site by Thomas Acton 30
Towards Europe’s First Nation by Michael M. Thoss 34
The Roma Pavilion in Venice – A Bold Beginning by Gottfried Wagner 36
Artists, Statements, Works
Daniel BAKER 40
Tibor BALOGH 62
Mihaela CIMPEANU 66
Gabi JIMÉNEZ 72
András KÁLLAI 84
Damian LE BAS 88
Delaine LE BAS 100
Kiba LUMBERG 120
OMARA 136
Marian PETRE 144
Nihad Nino PUSˇIJA 148
Jenô André RAATZSCH 152
Dusan RISTIC 156
István SZENTANDRÁSSY 160
Norbert SZIRMAI - János RÉVÉSZ 166
Bibliography 170
Foreword | 1312 | Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
With this publication, the Open Society Institute, Allianz Kulturstiftung and the European Cultural Foundation announce
the First Roma Pavilion at the 52nd
Venice Biennale, which presents a selection of contemporary Roma artists from eight
European countries.
This catalogue is the result of an initiative undertaken by the Open Society Institute’s Arts and Culture Network Program
to find untapped talent and identify Roma artists who are generally unknown to the European art scene. During our
research, we contacted organisations, institutions and individuals who had already worked to create fair representations
of Roma, to help Roma participate in cultural life and to attain recognition for Roma art.
We are indebted to all those who have generously devoted time to this project: particularly the artists, who have allowed
us to publish their biographies and statements along with reproductions of their works; the team of scientific
consultants, which includes Viktor Misiano (art historian, international curator and critic); Thomas Acton (Professor of
Romani Studies, University of Greenwich); Barnabás Bencsik (curator, Director, ACAX | Agency for Contemporary Art
Exchange); Dragan Klaic (scholar, cultural analyst and writer in the field of European cultural policy) and Marketta
Seppala (Director, Frame Foundation and Commissioner of the Nordic Pavilion 2007); as well as the Sub-Board of the
OSI Arts and Culture Network Program.
We would like to express our appreciation to the sponsors of the Roma Pavilion: George Soros, Founder and Chairman
of the Open Society Institute; Michael Thoss, Director of the Allianz Kulturstiftung; and Gottfried Wagner, Director of
the European Cultural Foundation, for encouraging us with the wise advice, new ideas and helpful solutions; to the
Swiss Cultural Programme South-East Europe and Ukraine, a program of SDC and Pro Helvetia, which has provided
additional funding; to Pierre Mirabaud, András Ujlaky, Tibor Derdák and Suzanne Wettenschwiler, who were the first
individual supporters of the Roma Pavilion, setting an example for other “Friends of the Roma Pavilion”. We have been
inspired by the suggestions of Peter Stepan, editor of Prestel Verlag.
We invite readers to use this catalogue as it is intended: not as the last word on the subject of contemporary Roma art,
but as an introduction and an irritant — an intellectual provocation that hopefully will raise as many questions as it
answers.
Tímea Junghaus
Curator
Foreword
The Open Society Institute, the Allianz Kulturstiftung and the European Cultural Foundation are pleased to sponsor the
First Roma Pavilion at the 52nd
Venice Biennale. With artists representing eight countries, this is the first truly European
pavilion in the Biennale's history, located in an exceptional space – Palazzo Pisani Santa Marina, a typical 16th
-century
Venetian palace in the city’s Canareggio district.
A Roma Pavilion alongside the Biennale's national pavilions is a significant step toward giving contemporary Roma
culture the audience it deserves. The Roma Pavilion marks the arrival of contemporary Roma culture on the
international stage and sends an important message of inclusion: the Roma have a vital role to play in the cultural and
political landscape of Europe.
As the largest minority group in Europe (estimated at between 8 to 12 million), the Roma have faced centuries of
exclusion and discrimination. With the enlargement of the European Union, this exclusion has become impossible to
ignore. As a result, many governments in Europe have recognised the need to improve socio-economic conditions for
the Roma and to fight against discrimination. Roma issues are also being addressed by international and European-level
initiatives such as the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015 and the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All 2007.
Moreover, since the collapse of Communism, a new generation of Roma intellectuals and artists has emerged, along
with a new Roma consciousness. As the Roma Pavilion attests, a vibrant Roma culture has endured in the face of
depredation.
Although the focus during the Biennale is on the artists and the contribution of Roma culture to European culture,
highlighting Roma culture complements the objectives of Roma inclusion and equal rights. Cultural work, in our view,
can often reveal social injustice to a broad public far more creatively and effectively than can politics. Cultural work can
also provide a positive starting point for the development of effective policies by recognising that Roma people
contribute to the tapestry of a united Europe by enriching its fabric.
Aryeh Neier
President, Open Society Institute
overleaf, pp. 14-15
Daniel Baker
static, 2006
photographic image, variable size, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
Daniel Baker | 1514 | Daniel Baker
Paradise Lost | 1716 | Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
The First Roma Pavilion
by Tímea Junghaus
The Roma are not a homogeneous group. Assimilation, emancipation, migration, miscegenation, education and social
status have diversified the populace to such an extent that today the Roma population is as diverse as the general
European non-Roma population. Yet for all the diversity, a common cultural framework and a social history sustain the
classification.
Romani communities are dispersed far and wide across Europe, creating discontinuous diasporas. Today, the Romani
population in Europe is variously estimated at between eight and twelve million people.1
Precise demographic data are
not available, due in large part to
“The reluctance of many Roma to identify themselves as such for official purposes, and the refusal of many
governments to include Roma as a legitimate category for census purposes.” 2
With the May 2004 enlargement of the European Union, approximately 1.5 million Roma became EU citizens. The
accession of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 means an additional 3 million EU citizens of Romani origin.
The Roma speak different dialects of Romani, as well as a variety of languages from their “host” countries. They share a
number of religious and church affiliations, whilst maintaining at the same time cultural boundaries not only between
themselves and the surrounding environment, but also between different Romani groups.
Roma politics lack even the most fundamental methodological tools necessary to define, organise and implement policy.
Students of the Roma as a minority are divided over principal theoretical issues. Experts are hesitant in their choice
between a standpoint advocating human rights and anti-discrimination, and approaches that promote “human
development.” 3
The assessment and critical analysis of the situation is further hindered by the conflict of the standpoint
that prioritises the assertion of individual, human rights, and theories that rely on a unified group identity for the Roma.
To counter and overcome massive prejudice, hate and discrimination in Europe, policies and action plans are needed,
which apply to the entire Roma community. In order to make these efficient by maximising social awareness and
participation, they must be employed not on the level of the individual, but of the group(s), through the communication
and representation of community identity. Thanks to the communication and information potential of images, the
culture of the Roma has a far more important role in the contemporary politics of representation and the conveyance of
a valid Roma identity than any other media.
As the distinguished Romologist Thomas Acton points out:
“Multiculturality might be an appropriate concept to describe the basic reality of Gypsy people.”
The Roma community is a transnational minority; their rights and identity are contingent upon not only the discretion
of individual states, and thus the legitimacy of Roma identity is the competence not only of the particular nations. The
Roma community knows no territorial boundaries, uniting people of different tongues and religions. Understood this
way, Roma identity coincides with Stuart Hall’s cultural identity, which is a “matter of becoming,”4
or with Homi
Bhabha’s description:
“restless, uneasy, interstitial hybridity: a radical heterogeneity, discontinuity, the permanent revolution of forms.”5
In creating Roma identity, the discourse of locality, of origin, is far more important than construing “nomadicity.”
Such a definition of cultural identity became a cornerstone of post-colonial thought: imaginary contents emerged, a
“coherence in the experience of dispersal and fragmentation, which is the history of all enforced diasporas.” 6
The history of Roma representation shows a strong resemblance to that of colonised peoples; thus, post-colonial theory
is one of the obvious choices in analysing the works of Roma artists. It is not uncommon to employ post-colonial
theory in a context that is not typically post-colonial; it is, in fact, a favoured method in critical cultural studies, when a
different culture, historical or social phenomenon is to be understood. Ian Hancock, an acknowledged linguist of
Romani origin, also emphasises this analogy:
“A similarity of life conditions
(oppression, discrimination) may produce
a similarity in the development of
language and culture.” 7
Since our approach is post-colonial and
the present study can be considered an
ethnicist text, it is necessary to define or
rewrite the concept of nation. The
grounds on which this rewriting can take
place is the idea of the nation as an
allegory, because any other gesture within
the territory of the possible critical
interpretations would not so much rewrite
the nation as power relations, but
reproduce it. The nation must be present
as an idea and not as an ideology (in the
Benedetto Crocean sense), as an element
of value and not as an evaluator. This
way, the nation ceases to be a
manipulation that contains and
dominates everything, and becomes
instead a circumscription that allows for
the recognition of current truths: an
opportunity for multiple meanings.
Cultural representations play an important role in the construction of the Roma identity. Until the second half of the
20th
century, the representation of the Gypsy was the exclusive monopoly of non-Roma (gadhe) artists. This could be
done by representing Romani music as “folk-music,” Romani verbal accounts as folklore and Romani-made images as
“folk art” or “naïve art.” In other words, Romani productions were represented as being not the work of individual
authors, but rather as collective facts of nature, which only become a concrete representation when in some way
presented by the art collector or the folklorist. As a new generation of Roma intellectuals emerges, we are witnessing
the birth of Roma consciousness,8
a state when successful, wealthy and well-educated Roma proudly acknowledge their
origin, rather than opt for assimilation and the relinquishment of their cultural heritage. The latter is a real reason for
concern, even now when there are only a few well-to-do Roma. As OSI Chairman George Soros put it,
“It is a very natural inclination to try not to be Roma, to meld into the general population, to assimilate. And therefore
what is left, what the rest of the population sees, are the disenfranchised, the underclass. And that is the stereotype that
prevails in society.” 9
These well-educated professionals are rewriting the history of Roma culture, representation and art. If we draw on
Stuart Hall’s analysis of minority cultural politics, we might suggest that in order to deconstruct dominant cultural
The storage facility of the largest European Roma Art Collection (Budapest, 4th
district)
Paradise Lost | 1918 | Paradise Lost
representations, Roma artists need to
fight on two fronts. First, they need to
reverse the stereotypes that prevail in
the media, by producing images of the
Roma that oppose those created in
mainstream culture. Secondly, they need
to fight for access to mainstream
audiences. Otherwise, even the rare
examples of truly authentic selfrepresentations
remain visible only
within the narrow circles of academia or
human rights festivals. If, as leading
Romani scholar-politician Nicolae
Gheorghe suggests,
“the representation of Romani identity is
a process of ethno-genesis which
involves the Roma self-consciously
playing with their identities, then
perhaps we must recognise that
constructing effective representations
involves the artist as much as the
scientist or politician.”10
An event of historical importance marks
the beginning of the Roma Cultural
Movement in Europe, the 1979 First
National Exhibition of Self-Taught
Artists in Hungary, organised by Ágnes
Daróczi and hosted by the Pataki
Community Centre (Budapest).11
This exhibition raised international awareness, generated fans and supporters to Roma
culture, and had a long-lasting propagating effect on the Central/Eastern European Roma cultural production. The third
such display, in 2000, was still organised in the Museum of Ethnography (Budapest), rather than an institute of
contemporary art, as if the exhibits were the exotic objects of an alien civilisation.
Serge Poliakoff, Otto Mueller, even Sandra Jayat, were welcomed to the artistic context they lived in, the avant-garde. In
the second part of the twentieth century we finally find the odd creative Romani writer, artist or film director making
self-representations, but when (after 1971) the Roma artists claimed recognition as a group, their works were still
relegated to the status of collective (folk, popular) manifestations of Roma culture, of exotic Roma objects. If the artists
were not reduced to anonymity, their fate was circumscribed by being presented, for over three decades, in marginal
institutions which did not have the necessary infrastructure for creation and exhibition. In 1981, Sandra Jayat organised
the first world exhibition of Roma artists in the Conciergerie of Paris.12
The exhibition was again an international
success, which did not manage to break into the art scene, but its significance in keeping Europe’s Roma artists inspired
and the creative production stimulated was outstanding. The initiators of these internationally acknowledged events
were pioneers, but the time was not yet right. Between 1980 and 1990, “social inclusion” became an important panEuropean
agenda, with the consideration of the situation of the Roma population, and although it did not have a
component of “cultural inclusion”, it prepared the ground for the second and more momentous wave of the Roma
Cultural Movement.
“The Roma, as Europe’s largest ethnic minority, have not benefited from the dramatic transition, consolidation and
expansion of democracy and democratic values in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. The continued ostracism and
segregation faced by the Roma registers as perhaps the most critical of democratic deficits within and beyond the
European Union. Their predicament needs to be
understood as the legacy of long-standing
discrimination and exclusion compounded by
extreme poverty. The challenge of closing the gap
in living conditions between Roma and non-Roma,
eliminating anti-Roma prejudices and ending social
exclusion needs to be understood as a complex,
multi-faceted, pan-European issue.” 13
The establishment of the First Roma Pavilion at the
52nd
International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di
Venezia – is the climax of the process that began in
Central and Eastern Europe in the mid-1990’s,
when the interpretation of the cultural practice of
minorities was enabled by a paradigm shift,
commonly referred to in specialist literature as the
“cultural turn.” 14
The idea of the cultural turn was
introduced; and this was also the time when the
notion of cultural democracy became crystallised in
the debates carried on at various public forums.
Civil society gained strength, and civil politics
appeared, which is a prerequisite for cultural
democracy. This shift of attitude in scholarly circles
derived from concerns specific not only to ethnicity,
but also to society, gender and class.15
This change brought about an interest in exploring
the history and value of Roma culture. Not only has
it become obvious that the arts are laden with
stereotypes about the Roma, but also that the
cultural classification describes the visual products
of the Roma with terms the experts themselves
claim to be positive, like naïve, barbarian, primitive,
primordial, archetypal, autodidactic. Roma art was
evaluated solely by non-Roma experts, who
excluded it from the official canon on the grounds
that it was outdated, merely illustrative or, at best, nostalgic. Roma artists rarely had the opportunity to experiment with
new techniques, and they could exhibit only in community centres, venues which seem marginal from the perspective of
the cultural discourse. When Roma intellectuals defined one of their chief missions as the exploration and presentation
of Roma art, and the removal of stereotypes and prejudices from the image of the Roma, they only expected to face a
scarcity of resources and very difficult circumstances under which to realise ideas; what they did not anticipate was that
the international cultural scene and cultural policy would become sensitive towards, and interested in, the same cultural
products, contents and problems they were examining, and that this context would be essentially appreciative and
encouraging. During this second wave of the Cultural Movement, Roma artists have been successful participants of
several international contemporary art events.16
However, for Roma artists, acknowledging their identity and cultural heritage is still a double-edged sword, despite the
fact that the increasingly vigorous discourse on Roma identity and representation, together with the appearance of
Roma cultural experts, has begun to dismantle this sophisticated machinery of cultural oppression.
Roma culture has generated such interesting new phenomena as the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno, a
professionally installed museum space with multiple functions and a carefully elaborated strategy of presenting the
Cover page of the exhibition catalogue Second Site, 2006
David Zeman: The Roma Road
Facade mural of the Museum of Romani Culture, Brno
Paradise Lost | 2120 | Paradise Lost
history of Roma representation
accurately and engagingly. Most
of the museum’s staff are
Roma,17
and it is a place where
everyone in the populous Brno
Roma community can spend their
time constructively. The building
is decorated by a large mural,
painted by David Zeman and his
team: The Roma Road is
screaming for recognition with
vigorous oranges, reds and blues.
Similarly momentous are those
attempts which present Roma
artists in the official spaces of
contemporary culture. The 2004
exhibition Hidden Holocaust was
the first in Hungary to open the
gates of Mûcsarnok/Kunsthalle
Budapest, this bastion of
contemporary art, to the Roma
artists. This was in effect the first
time that Roma artists (eleven in
all) could exhibit in an official
space of contemporary art, and
could use the infrastructure of
the institution to realise their
works.18
A glimpse at the exhibits
of the Second Site show, held in London in March 2006, will also convince us that the way we are invited and allowed
to think about Roma visual art has changed irreversibly: the paradigm shift has occurred.
The new paradigm is the creation of mega-projects which find their way into the institutions of official culture. What is
needed are cultural events whose concepts are consciously developed on the basis of scholarly research, careful
preparation and a comprehensive strategy for the representation of Roma culture. The most important element in this
paradigm shift is the use of the new space and the related infrastructure. Using a new, different infrastructure (theatres,
concert halls and museums, together with their experts) has a positive effect on Roma cultural centres, which in time
could boast quality promotion, more professional teams, and extensive experience in cultural management. Roma
culture should infiltrate the official spaces, create professional solutions after conscious preparation and the
reconsideration of its own representation, and rely on the expertise (in organisation and performance), participation and
involvement of the majority societies.
The creation of the Roma minority’s own infrastructure – museums, theatres, concert halls etc. – remains on the
agenda. There are countries where the need for the Roma’s own institutions has been an issue in social discourse for
decades.19
Despite the many available proofs (institutions, exhibitions) of the advantages of acknowledging, or better
yet, recognising, the culture of the Roma minority, of how it improves the image of the Roma in society and the selfesteem
of Roma individuals, it is still debated whether there is any need for exclusively Roma institutions. Thus it is a
question of whether there is a need for a Roma Pavilion. The answer may be another question: without creating an
independent Roma Pavilion, how can we introduce Roma artists to the international art scene and the Roma
community? The Roma Pavilion does not reinforce the segregation of the Roma (is not a “cultural ghetto”) when it
represents Roma culture not as part of national cultures. Identity-based cooperation, as in the case of this Biennale, is
needed not because we have a ghettoising or separatist agenda in the representation of Roma culture, but because
Roma representation does not have a well-developed infrastructure we could rely on, and there has been extensive
evidence that contemporary Roma art has not been able to find its niche of representation within the national
structures. There is no other way Roma artists could have access to the infrastructure necessary for international
appearance: exhibition spaces, a communication campaign, a contemporary arts institution that manages logistics.
Of course, in an ideal world Roma artists would be able to exhibit in any of the European pavilions, but it is a fact that
no artist of Roma origin has been presented at the Venice Biennale throughout its 112-year.
It is an emphatic part of the curatorial concept that this display seeks to counter wild romantic stereotypes and
misconceptions about Gypsy culture, fostering thereby a more self-assured Roma identity. It also wants to prove that
Roma artists speak a visual language that is understandable all over the world, and that this language is in line with the
“sophisticated, problem-conscious” approach of contemporary art. Though sensitivity to problems may be an attribute
of contemporary art, it lost its interest in the kind of self-representation that relies on a homogenous identity some time
ago.
The title of the exhibition, Paradise Lost, refers to the fact that the majority society should at last give up not only
negative stereotypes about the Roma, but also the exotic “Gypsy romances.” The self-image that is to emerge at this
display through the reinterpretation of Roma identity is not expected to be homogenous or stable. It is our belief that
the identity of the Roma serves as a model for a modern, European transnational identity that is capable of cultural
fusion and adaptation to changing circumstances. This is how the artists invited represent themselves, and this is how
they experience their Gypsy identity. But while the goals of the Pavilion include the representation of this flexible
identity, the individual artists have not been requested to deal with their own identity. Not every one of the artists in
the Pavilion is of Roma origin. Nihad Nino Pusˇija, for instance, who lives in Berlin, has been documenting the life of a
Gypsy family for two decades and had built strong links with this minority before learning (about two years ago) that he
himself has Roma ancestors. The Finnish Kiba Lumberg’s video work ends with this sentence:
“I don’t recall being a Gypsy, but I have Gypsies in my dreams, and Gypsies surround me.”
This Roma heritage, the traces of it, the memories, experiences and traumas define the pieces, and the artists’ identity
will never be irrelevant when interpreting their work. As Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe, the distinguished expert of mixed-race
studies said:
“So many things have happened to me because of what I am, and they shape the way I am today…”20
These artists embrace and transform, deny and deconstruct, oppose and analyse, challenge and overwrite the existing
stereotypes in a confident and intellectual manner, reinventing the Roma tradition and its elements as contemporary
culture. The archetypical motives provide a firm underlying sentiment, but the result unexpectedly suggests a new
interpretation, one that is created by the Roma artists themselves. The envisioned alternative identity highlights the
strengths of the Roma, their capacity for fusion, sense of glamour, humour and irony, adaptability, mobility and
transnationalism. The intention of opposing and denying the existing (mis)representations and promoting the contrary
carry an irresolvable dichotomy, which becomes manifest in an art that is laden with sorrowful beauty, traces of
paranoia, schizophrenia and post-traumatic syndromes.
The representations set models before the majority society, as well as the Roma, and represent the Roma as a group of
civilised, successful individuals whose dignity is complete and worthy of acknowledgement.
Visual art has the palpable power to define and communicate particularised ideas, as well as collective cultural codes.
Makers of art throughout history have exercised their immanent power to define themselves through art and to fashion
a self-definition that reveals them and their respective societies in the best possible light. Roma artists have exercised
the same right, but until recently they were condemned to anonymity and their voices have been hushed. If nothing
else, this exhibition stands as evidence that their voices are now heard and will continue to resonate over time.
Delaine and Damian Le Bas, Daniel Baker | photo: Karl Grady
Paradise Lost | 2322 | Paradise Lost
NOTES
1
Bernard RORKE and Andre WILKENS (eds.), Roma Inclusion: Lessons Learned from OSI’s Roma Programming, Budapest: Open Society Institute, 2006
2
European Commission, The Situation of Roma in an Enlarged European Union, 2004,
http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/fundamental_rights/pdf/pubst/roma04_en.pdf
3
The principal idea behind the concept of “human development” is enabling people to realise their talents through improving their opportunities
and life quality.
4
Stewart HALL, Cultural Identity and Diaspora, Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, eds. Patrick WILLIAMS and Laura CHRISMAN, Harlow:
Longman, 1993,
p. 394
5
J. C. Robert YOUNG, Colonial Desire, Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race, London, New York: Routledge, 1995, p. 25
6
See note 4
7
Quoted in Nicolae GHEORGHE and Thomas ACTON, Citizens of the world and nowhere: Minority, ethnic and human rights, In: Roma during the Last
Hurrah of the Nation-State, Between Past and Future, ed. Will GUY, Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001, p. 59
8
I introduce the term after Gloria Anzaldúa, one of the greatest theoreticians of Chicano studies. In her writing, LA conciencia de la Mestica:
Towards a new consciousness, she describes the state when instead of revolt, resistance and anger, the Chicano’s consciousness is characterised by
pride and peace, evoked by the esteem and respect of the majority society.
9
www.romadecade.org
10
Dragica FELJA, Representation of Roma Culture in Contemporary Film, PhD Dissertation, 2004, See note 7
11
Ágnes DARÓCZI, The First National Exhibition of Autodidact Gipsy Artists Budapest: National Centre of Adult Education, Budapest: MMI, 1979
12
Sandra JAYAT: Première Mondiale D’art Tzigane, Paris, La Conciergerie May 6- May 30 1985.
13
See note 1
14
The birth and the impact of the cultural revolution is outlined in the bibliography.
15
The shift was originally initiated in western societies by intellectuals outside academia, in a response to the civil rights and student movements,
which generated social changes.
16
A few examples: János Balázs, monographic exhibition, Hungarian Institute, Paris; “We are what we are” – Aspects of Roma Life in
Contemporary Art, Minoriten Galerie, Graz, Austria, 2004; the exhibition travelled to Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary
(2006); Tibor Balogh, Teréz Orsós, International Sinti Festival, Hungarian Institute, Berlin, 2004; Hidden Holocaust, Mûcsarnok/Kunsthalle
Budapest, March 2004; North and South LAB, Culture and Colonisation, Tranzquartier, Vienna, March 2005; Strategies of (In)visibility, Camden
Arts Centre, London, May 2005; Omara at the Rijeka Arts Biennial, Rijeka, Museum of Modern Art, November 2005; Second Site Exhibition, 2006
17
Including the director, Jana Horváthová, Ph.D
18
The Hidden Holocaust, Mûcsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest, March 2004
19
For example, the Hungarian Roma have been maintaining a discussion about the founding of a Museum for almost 25 years. The Roma minority
of the Czech Republic and Romania have succeeded in their effort of building their own Roma Museums.
20
Jayne O. IFEKWUNIGWE: Let Blackness and Whiteness Wash Through: Competing Discourses On Bi-Racialisation and the Compulsion of
Genealogical Erasures. Extract from Scattered Belongings: Cultural Paradoxes of ‘Race’, Nation and Gender, London, New York: Routledge, 1999,
pp. 183-187.
Group photo, Venice workshop, 2007 | photo: Nihad Nino Pusˇija
A note on the terminology of the essay. Though there is widespread consensus that the politically correct term to be
used instead of Gypsy is Roma, I use both in the text as synonyms of equal value, because “Roma” does not describe all
groups of Gypsies (like the Sintis, Romunglo, Beas, Gitanes, Manus, etc.) as it is derived from the name of one group.
Furthermore, I consider it far less important to use a politically correct term than to clean the word “Gypsy” of
prejudices and negative stereotypes, and to rehabilitate it by employing it in positive contexts.
The importance of hybridity is not to be able to
trace two original moments from which a third
emerges, rather hybridity to me is the ‘third space’
which enables other positions to emerge. This third
space displaces the histories that constitute it,
and sets up new structures of authority, new
political initiatives, which are inadequately
understood through received wisdom.
HK. BHABHA
(The Third Space)
Colorism is one legacy of Colonization.
Carol Camper:
(Miscegenation Blues: Voices of Mixed Race Women)
What is more European, after all, than to
be corrupted by the Orient”
Richard Howard
Representation of Romani identity is a process of ethno
genesis which involves Roma self-consciously playing
with their identities, then perhaps we must recognise
that constructing effective representations involves the
artist as much as the scientist or politician.
Nicolae Gheorghe
If you don`t honor your ancestorsin the real sense then you arecommitting a kind of suicide.
Sam Shephard
Participating in the diminishing
of ourselves and of others is how we
learned to survive...
Joanne Arnott
Human salvation lies in the hands of
the creatively maladjusted.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to
Love, 1963.
The slave trade is a] cruel war against
human nature itself, violating it’s most
sacred rights of life and liberty”
Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder
White supremacy means color bars, racial
segregation, and the restriction of meaningful
citizenship rights to a privileged group
characterized by its light pigmentation.
G.M. Fredrickson,
(White Supremacy: Study in American
& South African History)
The diaspora experience …is defined, not by essence
or purity, but by recognition of a necessary
heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of
‘identity’ which lives with and through, not
despite, difference; by ‘hybridity’. Diaspora
identities are those which are constantly
producing and reproducing themselves anew,
through transformation and difference.
Stuart hall
There are more than twelve million Roma
located in many countries.
Patrin
Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?”
Black church song
[I]t is necessary to understand that Black Power is acry of disappointment. The Black Power slogan did notspring full grown from the head of some philosophicalZeus. It was born from the wounds of despair and
disappointment. It is a cry of daily hurt and
persistent pain. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Where Do We Go from
Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
I have always wondered about our rightto ourselves, to inviolability, spiritualgrowth and freedom.
Kiba lumberg
Strange to wake up and realize you are on style. That’s what
happened to me just the other morning. It was the first day
of the new millenium and I woke to find that Mulatto`
s had taken over.
Danzy Senna: (The Mulatto Millenium.)
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's
against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the
oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't
need anything else.
Malcolm X, Malcolm 1965
Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything.
They just cry over their condition. But when they
get angry, they bring about a change.
Malcolm X, Malcolm, 1965
L uomo multiculturale costruira il mondo.
(Multicultural man creates the world)
Writing from a plate placed in front of the
Faculty of Economy at the Sarajevo University
Race itself is simply a conversation people either alignwith or they don`t. It is real only in our speaking of it– not in science... The ‘one drop rule’is an irrationalnotion born out of economic greed exploitation andrepression over 200 years old. It is time to let it dieonce and for all in our hearts and in our minds. Tocontinue to speak (of) it as if it is real or has any meritonly serves to limit th possibilities that humandiversity as for today and for all our tomorrows.
Ramona Douglass
When we look into each other`s eyes,our war torn souls communicate in their silences.
Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe:(Let Blackness and Whiteness Wash Through:)
,
Second Site | 3130 | Second Site
Second Site1
by Thomas Acton
This exhibition is an act of affirmation, not one of defence.
For some four centuries, Romani/Gypsy/Traveller communities lived in the aftermath of a social disaster. Although the
details vary enormously from country to country, their image in Europe, and taken by Europeans to their colonies, has
been one of problems. Consequently, any analysis of their situation by Europeans tended to be in the context of finding
a solution, right up until Hitler tried the final solution – which failed as all the others had done. They failed, of course,
because these communities had strategies of self-defence and survival, of accommodating to, rather than challenging,
racism and ethnic cleansing. Some accepted slavery; others, more fortunate, became taxable collectives of traders;
others, survivors of genocide, became marginal commercial nomads, especially in north-western Europe. Whatever public
performance they put on, they had to play along with non-Gypsy stereotyped images that suggested they had somehow
deserved the genocides and enslavements of the 16th
century. Only after Hitler, only after the discrediting of racism,
could the Roma challenge the self-serving silences of European historiography, and Romani nationalism emerge.
In a way, however, Romani nationalism was another kind of defensiveness. Built into its ideology is acceptance that
nations are entities entitled to a selfish defence of their own interests – the very ideology that led to the Romani
calamity in the first place, and seems to make prejudice against Gypsies/Travellers seem natural. Roma/Gypsies/Travellers
who became educated were faced with a terrible dilemma. Either they could keep their ethnicity to themselves and
“pass” to get on in life. Or they could become the new progressive miracle, the literate, educated Gypsy, the token
ethnic minority member, the professional Traveller community worker helping the educational and planning agents of
the state, who, however anti-racist they may be, are still trying to solve the Gypsy problem.
I do not mean to question either the goodwill or the courage or the necessity of the Romani movement. I have been
involved in it myself since 1967, and we have made some progress. Visual art had a place in it. One of the heroines of
the struggle, Ági Daróczi, used her position in the Hungarian Ministry of Culture under Communism to encourage
dozens of Romani artists.2
But their exhibitions were labelled naïve art. Progress came at a price. This marginal minority
struggle made those in it, whether they are Roma/Gypsy/Travellers themselves, or non-Gypsy friends, become
marginalised, obsessive and, in the older generation, even paranoid – in a word, defensive, still.
Daniel, Delaine and Damian belong to the first generation that has transcended this dilemma. They are not professional
Gypsies; they are not Gypsy artists any more than David Essex is a Gypsy singer. They are definitely not naïve. They are
artists who happen to be of Roma/Gypsy/Traveller origin. They are not part of any Gypsy problem. If you have a
problem with their origins, that’s your problem, not theirs.
This does not mean, of course, that they don’t still have to face prejudice and misunderstanding. When The Sun tried to
start an anti-Gypsy pogrom with its infamous “Stamp on the Camps!” headline, Delaine’s own parents suffered vicious
anti-Gypsy graffiti daubed on the fences of their (long-established, perfectly legal) site. But normal people will realise
that it is not Delaine’s parents, but The Sun’s racism which is the problem.
“Ah, but!”, exclaims the romantic ignoramus, the one who has read no serious Romani history but thinks he knows
some hidden wisdom of the ages about racial purity, “are they really true Gypsies? You use this politically correct
inclusive term ‘Roma/Gypsies/Travellers’ but what are they really? Are they Romanies or just Travellers?”
To deconstruct this question we have to look again at the disaster which befell the Roma about 200 years after they
arrived in Europe. When the mixture of Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic feudal empires gave way to the fiercely
nationalist states of the 16th
century, the Roma found themselves, along with Jews and Africans, the victims of
enslavement, ethnic cleansing and genocide. As capitalism replaced famine with unemployment, both migration and
commercial nomadism became demonised as vagrancy. Within national boundaries, Romani traders often dominated
commercial nomadic groups, even though the majority of Roma remained sedentary. A mosaic of groups was left behind
when the tide of persecution receded a little, some still very Indian, some localised and acculturated, and some like Irish
Travellers and Dutch Woonwagenbewoners starting their account of their own identity by asserting that whatever else
they are, they are not Gypsies.
All of the groups, and all of the individuals in them or straddling their boundaries, are what they are, with their own
history and culture, and no one does them any favours by asking whether they are really something else, whether the
racial essence of Bohemia, or the wild deviant of non-Gypsy fears. Looking at those real histories and cultures means
that we are no longer imprisoned by them, but can celebrate them as our starting point for the future.
This exhibition is an act of affirmation, not one of defence.
Each of these artists looks to the future. As I have laboured in the long, slow struggle of Romani Studies to replace the
Gypsy problem, coming across their work has been like a glimpse of life beyond that grind, a holiday from the constant
duty to explain. Their styles are utterly different, but each expresses vital components of what it means to be Romani in
the 21st
century. I dreamt of seeing their work together in one place.
Damian's extraordinary stream-of-consciousness concrete poems embodied in images evoked Gypsy history and everyday
experience, and spoke to me so personally as someone trying to make sense of Romani history that sometimes I
wondered if anyone else could understand them as I did. But when I spoke to other people, I realised they did. I learnt
the salutary lesson that an artist can put together in one image what a professor strives to say in a hundred lectures,
and still cannot quite encompass.
Delaine's work both embodies the assertive spirit of all the Roma/Gypsy/Traveller children's art I have ever seen,
combined with the hard-won self-reliance of maturity. I once heard a Gypsy preacher in his sermon say “Before I was
converted, I lived what I thought was an honourable life – I earned good money and Iiked nice things around me, good
cups and saucers and pieces – well I still like nice things around me – God doesn't take those away from you...”.
Delaine's creations, the soft figures and images, incarnate the spirit of those nice things. They are not the statuettes and
Crown Derby themselves, but they are a commentary, both ironic and loving, on the Gypsy determination to create an
environment with style. And also a warning about the threats to that environment from intolerance and ignorance.
In contrast to the intertwined lushness of Delaine and Damian, some of Daniel’s earlier abstract works examined
questions of identity and difference through the vehicle of process painting, exploring boundary formation as a means
of protection and segregation. The non-figuration of these earlier works was partly a response to the absence of the
human figure in traditional Gypsy decoration with painted scrollwork and motifs in contrasting colours set apart by
strong outlining. Daniel saw this use of strong outlining as an attempt to maintain a clear boundary definition between
diverse elements while at the same time seeking compositional harmony – a concern echoed in Romani people’s desire
to preserve their cultural identity from the perceived threat of assimilation. The works on display here, however, have
moved on, from his concentration on the boundaries to a far less austere exploration of the imagined space within
them, which, like the sites actually occupied by Gypsies, is marginal, and constantly under threat from ever more
restrictive laws which undermine their own formal commitment to progress and equality. Because we find both parts of
the contradictory myth in this space, the romance and the deviance, the possibility is finally offered of transcending it.
32 | Second Site
All three artists have to refer to the visual vocabulary with which world culture has represented Gypsies, and so cannot
escape the legacy of the past because they have to use it to enable their wider audience to know what they are talking
about. Lemon3
has shown brilliantly how this worked for music, theatre and film for the Roma in Russia before, during
and after the Soviet era. But among the arts, visual art has always been the avant-garde to take the past on board and
then move on. This exhibition4
is staged as a curtain-raiser for the London International Romani Film Festival, with its
mixed bag of bold experiment, historic stereotype and worthy documentary. For better or worse, those films show the
concepts with which we think about the place of Roma/Gypsies/Travellers in the world, the challenging of stereotypes
which is the first site of resistance. These three artists have reached a second site, where they transcend the stereotypes,
affirm the value of their experience, and represent the future.
NOTES
1
Second Site – Daniel Baker, Ferdinand Koci, Damien Le Bas, Delaine Le Bas – An Exhibition by four artists from Roma/Gypsy/Traveller
communities.
Compiled and edited by Thomas ACTON and Grace ACTON, London: University of Greenwich, 2006
2
Ágnes DARÓCZI and István KERÉKGYÁRTÓ (eds.), The Second National Exhibition of Autodidact Gipsy Artists, Budapest: Hungarian Cultural Institute,
1989. Not until 2000 was she able to catalogue The Third National Exhibition of Roma Artists, Budapest: Hungarian Cultural Institute. The change
of name and publisher marks more progress.
3
Alaina LEMON, Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Postsocialism, Durham NC: Duke University Press,
2000. For further contextualising discussion of Romani aesthetics see Thomas ACTON, Modernity, Culture and Gypsies, In N. SAUL and S. TEBBUTT
(eds.), The Role of the Romanies: Images and Counter-Images of ‘Gypsies’/Romanies in European Cultures, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press,
2004
4
Second Site, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich, 20th
February - 3rd
March 2006
Delaine Le Bas,
sketches and notes for site-specific installation
2007, Roma Pavilion, Venice
Towards Europe’s First Nation | 3534 | Towards Europe’s First Nation
Towards Europe’s First Nation
by Michael M. Thoss
The poetic and multifaceted exhibition title ‘Paradise Lost’ heralds the first transnational European artists’ pavilion in
the history of the Venice Biennale spanning the past 112 years. Naturally, there’s no pavilion available in the Giardini for
a Pan-European exhibition of this nature. And so the Palazzo Pisani had to be leased for this exhibition featuring
sixteen artists from eight European countries, curated by Tímea Junghaus. This state of affairs exists because the
Biennale reflects the concept of national representations typical of the 19th
century, an approach, which is completely
outmoded in the modern world. The situation has been a continual source of complaint from art critics, although no
major changes have been implemented. The problem is that artists from all over the world, curators and galleries are
desperate to be present at the Biennale once in their lifetime.
Even if a Pan-European pavilion comes into being at some point in the near future – and I don’t really know if that’s
actually desirable, if you think about the difficulties of putting together a suitable jury – there would certainly never be
an exhibition there devoted exclusively to Roma artists. After all, it would be utterly inconceivable within the European
Union, expanded to twenty-seven members, that one of the countries with the largest population of Gypsies should give
even one artist from this community the privilege of exhibiting and representing their home country in Venice. This is
not simply because it would entail acknowledging the Roma as full members of their society for the first time – not the
case in any European country so far! We Europeans would also have to move away from our kitschy images of the
Roma that became a fixed element in European mass culture at the latest when Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen was
staged. Incidentally, this opera remains one of the most frequently staged operas in the international repertoire. The
popular Romani image has since been perpetuated in many films (Francesco Rosi, Carlos Saura, etc.) and in advertising
campaigns right up to the present day. What’s more, the image of “romantic Gypsies” represents an ideal of our own
longings for freedom without being trammeled by possessions, and this image appears to be in fashion once again.
Author Colum McCann, based in New York, tells the heart-rending story of a female Roma poet in his successful novel
Zoli. He draws on several historical sources (including the Polish poet Papusza) to create her character. Singing, drinking
and brutality characterise the exceptionally successful novel by the adopted New Yorker, as Zoli travels endlessly in a
caravan through Central Europe. On the other hand, famous Roma orchestras, such as Taraf de Haïdouk’s “Kocani”
Orchestra, and the Mahala Rai Band, are continuously being remixed and sampled in Western European music studios.
This is because Gypsy rock and electronic manele music are currently hits at the latest hot ‘Balkan parties’ in Berlin,
London and Paris. By contrast, it’s difficult to find the heady mix of Balkan and Turkish manele music in ‘normal’ music
shops in Belgrade, Budapest, Bucharest and Sofia. Because of its associations with Gypsy music, manele is frequently
incorrectly designated as such, and Gypsy music is often boycotted by state radio broadcasters in these countries.
The Roma people have frequently been valued protagonists in European romantic productions, and this is also the case
in neo-romantic remakes today. But generally, other people benefit financially from these ventures: producers and
directors, such as the Bosnian Serb Emir Kusturica (Time of the Gypsies), who stated in an interview that he sought the
roots of his creative work in the culture of the Roma. He went on to say that this was why in his flight from the
inhuman society inherent in the modern world he had retreated to the realm of the Gypsies, where he professed to have
found humanity and loyalty.
Roma identities have frequently been borrowed by third parties, and this continues to be the case. They are used as
tools for criticising civilisation without ever having done anything to redress the political disenfranchisement of the
Roma people. The opposite has in fact been the rule. The flip side of the romanticisation of the Roma as exotic ‘Racy’
outsiders was presented by the Nazis when they demonised the Gypsies as a “non-European foreign race” and 500,000
Gypsies became the victims of this policy. Even today, members of the Roma people are viewed primarily in terms of
their ethnic affiliation rather than as individuals. For example, it is often assumed that contemporary Roma artists
should conform to prevalent clichés about “Gypsy art.” They are identified with their heritage and effectively excluded
from the arena of contemporary art. It is therefore long overdue for the Roma to be given the opporunity to speak for
themselves with their work rather than having their culture mediated through others.
However, our Foundations should be wary of presenting them primarily as representatives of a political or ethnic
collective since this would automatically subvert their artistic individuality and transform the Roma pavilion into an NGO
office or a section of an Ethnographic Museum. As a result, hardly any of them would be taken seriously as artists.
In the same way that African artists are not representatives of their continent’s plight, nor are contemporary German
artists representatives of Nazi crimes, Roma artists do not represent the so-called “others” of European history and its
pretended pure origins. The Roma express Europe’s cultural diversity and its multiple origins through their customs and
daily lives. In the same way that a Roma artist today deserves the same attention as other contemporary artists, the
Roma people cannot be considered any longer to be a backward community living solely by their traditions, but as
citizens with equal rights rooted in our common presence.
The Roma Pavilion, the first transnational pavilion in the Biennial’s history, is a genuine European pavilion highlighting
the artificiality of national borders and the fiction of “otherness” in Europe today. As far as artists are concerned who
are not (yet) part of the international art market and who are being ignored by museums and collections, the exhibition
represents an intermediate stage for these artists until their artistic works receive fully individual recognition. The basic
features of this exhibition by curator Tímea Junghaus recall the initiative by Salah Hassan and Okwui Enwezor when
they asked for the creation of a pavilion for African artists at the Venice Biennale. However, the concept developed by
Tímea Junghaus moves the debate further forward because it does not simply seek new forms of representation for
Europe’s largest minority. Their message at the Venice Biennial is a positive one: the artists who have been selected
express the much quoted cultural diversity of Europe within their original culture. This culture stretches right across
Europe and never needed national borders in order to define its cultural identity.
The author is the director of the Allianz Kulturstiftung
The Roma Pavilion in Venice – A Bold Beginning | 3736 | The Roma Pavilion in Venice – A Bold Beginning
The Roma Pavilion in Venice – A Bold Beginning
Ambivalence, sophistication and politics
by Gottfried Wagner
“Marking out is never an innocent act.” (Maria Todorova)
This dictum also applies in our case, the Roma Pavilion in Venice. Are we creating an ethnicising, socially motivated
‘special case’, sponsored by philanthropy, in the hybrid environment of the art establishment?
No doubt, there are multiple risks:
• That this endeavour will be perceived as patronising (by the Roma community, as well as the artistic and
critical communities)
• That it will be sidelined by the art world as a merely well-intentioned, extraterritorial exercise
• That it will be accused of being a symbolic act that has no impact on “reality”, the reality of Roma, Sinti, and …
(it starts with the name…), living in Europe in often still desperate conditions.
Of course, we have good arguments in favour of the project.
• We are breaking the established pattern of national pavilions with a transnational exhibition.
(However, transnationalism is, as yet, a “minority programme” in the political reality, a cosmopolitan paradigm
which makes little impact on contemporary ideologies of “identity”, despite trends in the wider socio-economic
environment. Will the art world, the art markets value the paradox?)
• OSI has diligently and courageously collected wide-ranging examples of “Roma” art.
(However, so far this has been done in relative isolation, not yet accompanied by critical discourse, and the
examples have been largely “pictorial”: such an “intuitive” approach may well be subjected to harsh, or
encouraging, scrutiny in Venice.)
• The “representational” mode of this exhibition will be complemented by a series of side events which,
along with the opening event, may become equally important “main events”; let us raise expectations that the
whole approach can be redirected into mainstream (ultimately political) debate about the Roma in Europe!
(However, these plans must transcend the “innocence” of the creative basis of the enterprise. On the other hand,
one may decide – knowing too much about the world of politics – to abstain from these “sophistications”
and remain “naïve”, in a deliberate choice for the autonomy of the arts.
Such considerations are perhaps too self-critical, but they do have consequences for the project’s
presentation and “use.”
• The Pavilion represents a kind of “third space” (to use Homi Bhabha’s term), a transnational attempt to sail
between memories, spaces and identities. It is neither innocently transnational (the social conditions experienced
by the Roma do not allow for idealism) nor innocently extraterritorial in the art world. Hopefully, the curator will
exploit and the visitors will appreciate these paradigms in such a way as to frustrate simplistic expectations.
• The Pavilion “represents” and questions intra-European decolonisation of minds. The post-colonial theory of
Edward Said applies here as well, both in rejecting “exoticism”, “intra-European Orientalism”, as well as decoding
discourses of alleged superiority and exclusion.
• This decolonising approach entails recognition of the fact that we are living in an age marked more
by “synchrony” than “progress.” Art’s power lies in this simultaneity of phenomena, rather than the standards –
subject to fashion – of marketability or so-called progress. Reference to the material conditions of transit,
homelessness, exposure, etc., can help to locate memories and their oppressiveness.
• The pavilion contradicts high-cultural notions of art imagery and values. The question it raises, in essence, is
“What do pictures want?” (as W.J.T. Mitchell titled one of his books). Perhaps, contravening the monopoly of
letters, they are demanding that the unwritten “sub-history” be told. The pavilion sets a new benchmark
in the “economy of attention” and asks for a new mode of comprehending – and changing – the world
(and the world of the Roma).
What does that mean for the future proceedings?
• Reflection must be present from the first. This means investing in the opening event – OSI has chosen good
speakers, combining sponsors, artists, politicians and theoreticians – as well as in a few major side events
(with partners such as the European Cultural Foundation) in order to achieve some consistency.
• Make the exception the rule: ensure that the exhibition, and the spirit and reflection behind it, travel – not only
to New York, but also (and foremost) to European “destinations of destiny”, cities at the EU’s “internal” cultural
borders of exclusion and potential inclusion. (Future European Capitals of Culture, such as Stavanger 2008, Linz
2009, Essen, Pécs and Istanbul 2010 may well be catalysts of change in perception.)
• For maximum impact, engagement with the political sphere must be achieved, both at the public level
(EU Commission, Council of Europe, Ministers of Culture) and the private level (foundations, corporate partners).
The exceptional Pavilion proves to be extremely inspiring. Can we share this inspiration?
The author is the director of the European Cultural Foundation
works
artistsstat ements
Daniel Baker | 4140 | Daniel Baker
Artist’s Statement
My current work explores the imagined space occupied by the Gypsy, offering a window into the marginal area allocated
to them – outside of, yet surrounded by, connected, yet dislocated from a society that they have existed within for
hundreds of years. The imagined space here refers both to the symbolic space of myth and misconception held in the
popular imagination, as well as the absence or disappearance of geographical space for Gypsy habitation in the light of
recent legislation.
These works use painted, etched and gilded glass to produce illuminated mirrored surfaces, or looking glasses. Images
appear behind the glass but in front of the mirrored background, locating the subject in a liminal or in-between space –
a space which the Gypsy continues to inhabit both physically and symbolically. The somewhat obscured nature of the
gilded reflection allows the viewer to inhabit the landscape of the work whilst at the same time evading true likeness
and recognition.
These looking glasses seek to highlight an ambiguity and confusion in the way that Gypsies are seen – a state of
obscured likeness and masked visibility that has been internalised by the Gypsy over time, making it difficult for Gypsies
to fully see themselves in the world. This difficulty in visualising the self has left popular stereotyped images relatively
unchallenged, the legacy of which is a symbolic Gypsy that is ever present but never truly seen. These works are
intended as a meditation upon identity and dislocation.
In earlier abstract works I have examined questions of identity and difference through the vehicle of process painting.
These abstract pieces explore boundary formation as a means of protection and segregation. Concerns regarding the
perceived threat of difference and the consequent construction of boundaries refer in part to my experience of growing
up in my Romani community in Kent.
The works explore boundary patterning formed by conflicting identities and are informed by the ongoing negotiations
between this enclosed group and the adjacent non-Romani community.
The non-figuration of these earlier works is partly a response to the absence of the human figure in Gypsy artifact
decoration. An example of this can be seen in the painted caravan, where artwork consists mainly of painted scrollwork
and motifs in contrasting colours set apart by strong outlining. As well as the more obvious decorative function served
by this means of ornamentation, I see the use of strong outlining in Gypsy paintwork as an attempt to maintain clear
boundary definition between diverse elements whilst at the same time seeking compositional harmony – a concern
echoed in the Romani peoples’ desire to preserve their cultural identity from the perceived threat of assimilation.
Biography
Daniel was born in St Mary Cray in Kent in 1961, the youngest son of
a family of Romanichal Gypsies. This community has existed in the
area for many generations and represents the largest concentration of
Gypsies in England. His family settled before he was born, making for
a relatively stable education. Daniel studied painting at Ravensbourne
School of Art from age 17 to 21. His art practice has become
increasingly contextualised by an ongoing exploration of his cultural
positioning.
Having completed a Sociology MA specialising in Romani Studies,
Daniel began his Doctoral Research at the Royal College of Art in 2006.
He is currently serving as Chair of the Gypsy Council and editor of The
HUB, the newsletter of the Gypsy Council. He exhibits widely both in
the UK and abroad. He lives and works in London.
Education
2006 Commenced PhD at Royal College of Art – Site Unseen:
Camouflage and Passing in the Construction of Gypsy Identities
2003 Silenced Voices – delivered paper on Gypsy identity
at PEN event, Royal Festival Hall, London
2002 The Queer Gypsy – MA dissertation:
an analysis of Gay Romani identity
Exhibitions & Projects
2007 Productive Matter, Café Gallery, Southwark Park, London – Upcoming
No Gorgios, co-curator at Novas Gallery, London
Paranoia, Freud Museum, London
What are Feelings for?, Centre for Drawing, London
Wimbledon College of Art, London
2006 Contemporary Gypsy group show, Mascalls Gallery, Paddock Wood, Kent
Paranoia, Leeds City Art Gallery & Focal Point Southend, Kent
lookinglass, Novas Gallery, London*
Second Site, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London
Appleby Cumbria, Stowmarket, East Anglia
2005 When in Rome V, Third Floor Gallery, Southampton
When in Rome IV, Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham
No Travellers, Victoria Hall, Oakham, Rutland*
2004 When in Rome III, Castlefields Art Gallery, Manchester
Homeland, Spacex Gallery and concurrent venues around Exeter
Passing Places, touring exhibition of Gypsy and Traveller Culture, Hertford Museum
2003 When in Rome I, Art House Gallery, London
BODIES, Corn Exchange Gallery, Newbury*
Daniel BAKER [GB]
Daniel Baker | photo: Karl Grady
CV
Daniel Baker | 4342 | Daniel Baker
2000 Romani Jivapen Jinapen, a medal commissioned by BAMS, British Museum, London
1999 Gallery Artists, Beardsmore Gallery, London
Paintings at Beardsmore Gallery, London
1997 Oriel Mostyn open exhibition, Llandudno, Wales
Royal Over-Seas League open exhibition, London and Edinburgh
1996 DROM, a multimedia collaboration, funded by the London Arts Board,
performed at The Place Theatre, London
1995 Toynbee Hall, London
* indicates a solo exhibition
Works in Public Collections
British Museum, Novas Gallery, ACERT, private collections in UK and abroad
Bibliography
Andrew HUNT, “Paranoia”, Art Monthly, Feb 2007, issue no 303
Colin MARTIN, “Paranoid Visions”, The Lancet, 3.2.2007
Peter CONRAD, “Paranoid? This lot really ought to be”, The Observer, 28.1.2007
Andrew GRAHAM-DIXON, “Carefully Deranged”, The Sunday Telegraph, 21.1.2007
Tímea JUNGHAUS, Meet Your Neighbours, Contemporary Roma Art from Europe, Budapest: Open Society Institute, 2006
“Funny ha ha”, (An essay commenting on media representation of Roma,
for Catalyst Magazine, The Campaign for Racial Equality), 8.12.2006
Abigail DUNN, Catalyst Magazine, 7.7.2006
Alfred HICKLING, “Paranoia”, The Guardian, 5.7.2006
Sarah VINE, “Second Site – the Caravans roll into town”, The Times,
Section 2, 27.2.2006
vardo looking glass, 2005
mixed media on perspex, Ø 92 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
44 | Daniel Baker
small pink looking glass, 2005
mixed media on glass, 35 x 26 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
bluebird looking glass, 2006
mixed media on perspex, 73 x 73 cm, collection of ACERT, UK
photo: Daniel Baker
Daniel Baker | 4746 | Daniel Baker
gold rose looking glass, 2006
mixed media on glass, 36 x 35 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
ornament, 2005
mixed media on ceramic, 35 x 35 x 35 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
Daniel Baker | 4948 | Daniel Baker
cock and flower looking glass, 2004
mixed media on glass, 32 x 36 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
golden bird looking glass, 2006
mixed media on perspex, 50 x 23 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
Daniel Baker | 5150 | Daniel Baker
horses looking glass, 2005
mixed media on perspex, 100 x 113 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
gold flowers looking glass, 2005
mixed media on perspex, 100 x 100 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
Daniel Baker | 5352 | Daniel Baker
bouquet looking glass, diptych, 2006/07
mixed media on perspex, 120 x 90 cm each, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
cock and hen looking glass, 2004
mixed media on glass, 60 x 30 cm each, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
54 | Daniel Baker
pink looking glass, 2005
mixed media on glass, 127 x 47 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
anagrammatic looking glass, 2007
mixed media on perspex, 120 x 90 cm,
collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
Daniel Baker | 5756 | Daniel Baker
wish you were here, 2006 (and copse detail)
mixed media, 170 x 85 x 60 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
clear sign, 2007
mixed media on perspex, 11 x 85 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Paul Ryan
copse, 2006
mixed media, 180 x 90 x 50 cm each, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
Daniel Baker | 59
bird – table – lamp, 2006
mixed media, 150 x 40 x 40 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
small house, 2006
mixed media, 50 x 40 x 40 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
Daniel Baker | 6160 | Daniel Baker
sign looking glass, 2005
mixed media on perspex, 21 x 85 cm, collection of the artist, London
photo: Daniel Baker
62 | Tibor Balogh Tibor Balogh | 63
Tibor Balogh is the first Roma artist to be admitted to, and to have
graduated from, the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. Testifying to a full
mastery of his art, his diploma piece, a series of copperplates, blends
childhood memories of the artist with fragments from another scene of his
life, the 8th
district of the capital, which has the highest percentage of Roma
population in the city, and which was home to Balogh during his Academy
years. After graduation, his first important appearance was at the exhibition
at the Mûcsarnok/Kunsthalle, the Hidden Holocaust.
Balogh left the installation he set up in the apse of the building untitled. The
cold brick piles and the songs about the Roma Holocaust that hovered about
them like a prayer invited a great many associations, and the artist did not
want to delimit or control the flow of ideas provoked by the vision. Two bedsized
piles of brick formed the core of the work. The distance between them
is exactly the same as in the sleeping quarters of the Tiszadob children’s
home, where the artist spent his childhood; the two beds evoked an
abandoned children’s room. These beds would never be warm again, not only
because those who slept there would never return, but also because they
were made of a rigid material, bricks. The brick smokestacks that became the
symbol of thousands of Roma deaths, turn in this installation into graves. The complex thought of the work is enhanced by the
Holocaust songs, painted above the installation, which throb with endless pain and bitterness.
Balogh made yet another provocative work for the Holocaust exhibition, a booth with the dimensions of 1 x 1 x 2.3 m. Illuminated by
a bare light bulb, the walls of the booth were papered with shocking documents, articles and photos dealing with the Holocaust of the
Roma and their ongoing discrimination. Stepping inside, it was impossible to ignore the evidence of their harrowing fate, no matter
where one turned. Outside the booth, there were small test tubes, with the instructions pasted on the wall. You could take a test tube
inside the booth, where you could spend as much time as you liked. You could collect your tears in the test tube, which you could sign
if you wanted to. The test tube was to be passed onto a small table through an opening, whence the artist took it, and hung it up
around the booth, among the other “raindrops.”
A hundred people took part in the action that preceded the exhibition, and the event had the mood of a Roma wake.
Tímea Junghaus
Tibor BALOGH [H]
Biography
Born in Fehérgyarmat, Hungary in 1975
Lives and works in Budapest, Hungary
From the age of one he was brought up in the Tiszadob Children’s Village, an institution raising mainly Roma orphans.
He is the first Hungarian Roma artist to graduate from the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts.
Education
Tiszadob, Ilku Pál Trade School (house-painter, decorator and paper-hanger)
1998-2003 Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest
1994-96 Tiszavasvár, Secondary School
Masters: Gitta Rózsavölgyiné Tomonyák, Róbert König, András Baranyai
Selected Exhibitions
2006 ARC poster exhibition, Budapest
Portraits of Roma Men, Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library
2005 Self-portrait – The European School and Contemporary Artists,
2B Gallery, Budapest
2004 The Roma Colours of Budapest, Budapest (curator)
The Hidden Holocaust, Mûcsarnok/Kunsthalle, Budapest, curated by:
János Sugár, Attila Nemes, Júlia Fabényi, József Készman, Éva
Gelencsér, and Tímea Junghaus
Hajdúböszörmény, Roma Days
2003 Interaction – Group Exhibition at the Hungarian Roma Parliament
Lobby of the Budapest University of Economic Sciences
Paintings of the Tiszadob Artist Community, Fészek Gallery, Budapest
2000 Andrássy Palace, Tiszadob
1998 Community Centre, Tiszaluc
Gallery of the XVIII District, Budapest
1996 Cultural Centre, Sárospatak
Works in Public Collections
Budapest Municipality – Romano Kher
CV
Tibor Balogh | photo: Nihad Nino Pusˇija
64 | Tibor Balogh Tibor Balogh | 65
Rain of tears, 2004
photo from the Hidden Holocaust exhibition, 2004
Rain of tears, 2004
photo from the Hidden Holocaust exhibition, 2004
Mihaela Ionela Cimpeanu was born in 1981 in Baliesti, southeastern Romania, into a family of young Roma. Her father
came from a family of brick-makers and became a construction worker. Her mother was unemployed.
She is the oldest of five children. When she was one, the family moved to Craiova. She attended the grammar school
and then high school, where she discovered her gift for drawing. She then was admitted to the High School of Arts and
graduated with the highest grades.
After graduation in 1999 she attended a public administration course. In the year 2000 she moved to Bucharest, where
she attended a journalism course and specialised in press photography, later working at a newspaper in Bucharest,
Curierul National, and as a painter at the Buftea Movie Studios. In 2001 she was admitted to the Faculty of Sculpture
at the National Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, Bucharest, and is currently a Master’s degree student.
In 2003 she became member of the cultural organisation, Artisrroma.
She is currently working as a freelance photographer and as a teacher at “Ioan Socolescu” College of Architecture and
the “AD Xenopol” Business School in Bucharest.
Tímea Junghaus
Studies
MA in sculpture, National University of Plastic Art and Decoration, Bucharest
“Marin Sorescu” College of Art, Craiova
Projects
Organisation “Artisrroma”
Roma in Romanian Art, supported by National Museum of Romanian Art, 2004
Big Masters within the Understanding of Small Artists, National Museum of Romanian Art, 2003
Mihaela CIMPEANU [RO]
Exhibitions
2005 Pictures and Sculptures, National Theatre, Bucharest
2004 Sculpture, Caminul Artei, Bucharest
Photography Drawing and Sculpture, Bucharest Museum “Sutu Palace”
Photography and Children Drawing, CNR – U.N.E.S.C.O, Bucharest
2003 Photography, Drawing and Sculpture, Bucharest Museum “Sutu Palace”
2002 Thana Romane, Goethe Institute, Bucharest
1999 Group exhibition, National Theatre, Craiova
Bibliography
2006 Tímea JUNGHAUS, Meet Your Neighbours, Contemporary Roma Art from Europe, Budapest:
The Open Society Institute
Delia GRIGORE and Gheorge SARAU: History and Roma Traditions, directory of the organisation Save the Children
CV
66 | Mihaela Cimpeanu Mihaela Cimpeanu | 67
Mihaela Cimpeanu | photo: Mirela Bratu
Mihaela Cimpeanu | 6968 | Mihaela Cimpeanu
Human Figures, 2004
ink on paper, various dimensions, collection of the artist
photo: Mihaela Cimpeanu
Project – Wings, 2005
ink and coloured pencils on paper, 20 x 30 cm,
collection of the artist
photo: Mihaela Cimpeanu
Tibor Balogh | 7170 | Mihaela Cimpeanu
Wings, 2005 (detail)
wood and metal, 200 x 90 x 7 cm, National Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, Bucharest
photo: Mihaela Cimpeanu
Wings, 2005
wood and metal, 200 x 90 x 7 cm, National Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, Bucharest
photo: Mihaela Cimpeanu
refining work and of the Gypsies and Travelling People from
France and Spain symbolic.
1995-2006 Member of the board of directors and vice-president
of the ADVOG association (www.advog.org). Manager of the
“show and communication” department, employee of an
integration structure for people in difficulty. Resumption of my
activity as a musician, concerts and flamenco guitar teaching.
Various collaborations and articles written for several magazines
such as Tchachipen (Spain), ADVOG info… Creation of my most
significant works. Founder and chairman of an association
called “Romani Art” to promote the cultural initiatives of
Gypsies and Travelling People in 2006. Resumption of my
research work on the symbolic and representations of Gypsies
and Travelling People: caravan, hanging laundry, people…
Selected Exhibitions & Artworks
2006 Itinérances Tsiganes [Gypsy Tourings] – Lyon, France
Ville de Ermont [Town of Ermont] – Ermont, Paris
Les mille et une… Cultures du monde [The Thousand and One… Cultures of the World] –
Villeuneuve d’Ascq, Lille, France
Sound Festival Furia – Pontoise, Paris
2005 12ème Salon National d’Arts [12th National Exhibition of Arts] – Franconville, Paris
Itinéraires Citoyens [Routes of Citizens] – Bessancourt, Paris
Itinéraires Citoyens [Routes of Citizens] – Taverny, Paris
Itinéraires Citoyens [Routes of Citizens] – Ermont,Paris
Traversées Tsiganes [Gypsy Crossings] – Dijon, France
Les gens du Voyage [The Travelling People] – Pontoise, Paris
1992-2004 L’envers du Voyage [The Other Side of the Trip] – FNASAT /Etudes Tsiganes – Paris
Les Gens du Voyage [The Travelling People] – Pontoise / Paris / France
L’envers du décors [The Other Side of the Décor] – Ville d’Herblay, Herblay, Paris
Le voyage / La luciole [The Trip / Firefly] – Herblay / Paris / France
Logo of the ADVOG association / Travelling People – Pontoise, Paris
Book illustrations
Gabi Jiménez | 7372 | Gabi Jiménez
Artist’s statement
There are things we see, notice, remember – and there are things we don’t want to see.
The Roma are frightening. Who are they? Where do they come from? What are they doing?
“I try to relate scenes of life in pictures, the moments of joy, the places we have borrowed for this while, the painful
memories that still haunt.”
All our memories are colourful. All my paintings, graphics, illustrations are coded, by necessity, in colour. Becoming
independent of its material, my work concentrates entirely on the meaning, and the message that derives from it. A bit
like in the stained-glass windows of churches, only without the regulation. The cloisonné and the contours that curb the
colours; the will to do without aesthetic devices that are completely meaningless; the desire to get as close to the
essence as possible – these are the things that animate all my visual and artistic intentions. As in flamenco.
Because I am flamenco.
“Y que tengo sangre de Rey en la palma de la mano.”
I could have called all my exhibitions DUENDE, which is the flamenco trance, what enables us to live in a community, to
feel this is our part in nature, to understand who we are and what position things assume in space. In other words, it is
the Gypsies’ voodoo. So while you see washing lines in my pictures, mud, piles of garbage, caravan camps and Gypsies, I
can see happiness there, my family, and what I am.
I could have submitted a detailed biography, an exhaustive account of my artistic intentions, all of it in perfect
chronological order, but unfortunately time does not exist for me, for us. So I may have created a lot of things, but to
neatly arrange them, that would be an impossible undertaking for me.
Thanks to me and to us for being here with me, with us.
I am known as Gabi Jiménez.
But I am also called François Lopez, Xavier Jiménez, François-Xavier Lopez… It depends on how my mum has written
my names down on the official papers. My mother, my father and one of my brothers are Spanish. Another brother is
French. So am I.
What is sure is that I was born in Paris in 1964.
1979-82 Applied and graphic art studies at “Rue Madame – Paris” school
1982-95 Marriage and divorce, various trips where the wind took me, or where policemen and trials put me. Several
decorative, artistic and advertising works (logos, illustrations, advertising campaign and things I do not dare tell here)
1989-94 Artistic director of a communication agency in Paris – Creation of a guitar magazine entitled La Corde de
Nylon (The Nylon Rope), specialised in promoting and music of those who are inspired by Gypsy music.
Various concerts of flamenco guitar and rumba gitana (Gypsy).
1994-2000 I met my real wife. Birth of my daughters Ana-Milagros (Nana) and Marina-Bahia (Poupouille),
renouncement of my life as a nomad. Various decorative and artistic works (paintings, pewter vases and jugs, Gypsy
figurines…). The beginning of my work of stylisation and line refining, locating of the primitive elements constituent to
the Roma culture (instruments, imaginative world, social life, living conditions, history, the people, the tales, expulsions,
discriminations…). Revelation of the importance of colour, symbolic (message, connotation, denotation, primitive and
social symbolisms, impacts…), transposed and coded on various supports such as paintings, digital works, performances,
installations. Awareness of the Romani identity (Taverny and les Manouches painting). In 2000, stabilisation of my
Gabi JIMÉNEZ [F]
Gabi Jiménez | photo: family of the artist
Gabi Jiménez | 7574 | Gabi Jiménez
Caravans and the Cypresses, 2001
oil on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Gabi Jiménez
overleaf, pp. 76-77
Caravans, 2007
digital print, 80 x 80 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Gabi Jiménez
Landscape with Caravans, 2006
digital print, 18 x 24 cm, private collection
photo: Gabi Jiménez
76 | Gabi Jiménez Gabi Jiménez | 77
78 | Gabi Jiménez Gabi Jiménez | 79
Drying Laundry, 2006
acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Gabi Jiménez
Caravan, Drying Laundry, 2006
acrylic on canvas, 18 x 24 cm, private collection / Paris
photo: Gabi Jiménez
80 | Gabi Jiménez Gabi Jiménez | 81
Saintes Maries de la Mer 3 – The Caravans, 2002
oil on canvas, 73 x 116 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Gabi Jiménez
overleaf, pp. 82-83
Saintes Maries de la Mer 2 – The People, 2000
acryl on canvas, 146 x 114 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Gabi Jiménez
The Travellers of Auvers, 2000
acrylic on canvas, 92 x 73 cm, private collection / Paris
photo: Gabi Jiménez
All my works are the results of an intuitive creative process, as regards both their
subjects and the process of realisation.
It was always after the event that I could recognise my method and identify its
sources, whether it be an attraction to primitive art, representations of Venus,
compositions built from used dolls and toys, or Barbie dolls.
Which is to say the work always comes first – spontaneously or by chance, – and
the idea, the subject follows in its wake, whether immediately or much later.
I want to emphasise this because the Barbie dolls are again something I chanced
upon. This figure had appeared in all of my earlier toy-compositions, but I had
not accorded more attention to it than to any other degenerate and grotesque
toys. But as two of my interests – or more precisely, those works that utilise
primitive art and those that employ contemporary toys – were approaching one
another, I realised I was using two idols, two completely different images of
women! One is Venus, who serves fertility, the other Barbie, who serves infertility!
My sculpture Fat Barbie is a result, the first refined form, of the encounter of
these two idols.
I want to represent the Barbie doll in certain situations, with the use of simple
symbols. The works that emerged along this concept may at first sight be
perplexing, even funny, but it is my hope that they are attention-arresting.
Born in Kerepestarcsa, Hungary in 1982.
Education
2001-2006 Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest – Sculpture Programme by Tamás Körösényi
1996-2000 Vocational Secondary and Training School for Building and Ornament Art (sculptor)
Group Exhibitions
2006 Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Epreskert, Budapest, – Thesis Show
Szentendre, Malomház Gallery
Újpest Gallery, Budapest
2005 Hungarian Culture Foundation, Budapest
Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Epreskert, Budapest
2004 Soroksár, Budapest
Kossuth Klub, Budapest
Józsefváros Community Centre, Budapest
2003 Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Epreskert, Budapest
Veresegyháza, Átrium Gallery
2001/2002 Tiszabura
Bibliography
Gábor RIEDER, “Kéznyomtól az üvegszilánkig”, Új Mûvészet, September 2006, XVII. 9., pp. 12-13.
Catalogue of the Graduating Students – Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest, 2007
András Kállai | 8584 | András Kállai
András KÁLLAI [H/GB] Fat Barbie, 2006
terracotta, plastic, 28 x 13 x 14 cm, collection of the artist
photo: barnabas toth
András Kállai | photo: Nihad Nino Pus˘ija
86 | András Kállai András Kállai | 87
Dirty Laundry, 2007
DVD projection, collection of the artist
When we gaze into the embers of a fire, we can see endless stories in the
flickering interplay of glow and shadow and ash. In Damian’s images
there is the same depth of narrative, yet the stories are not creatures of
our own imagination, but paths through the labyrinths of his intersecting
universes, real adventures that will not fade like a dying fire but capture
forever confrontations of people, ideas and culture.
The Damian of the pictures is in constant dialogue with a cast of
bystanders, traders and grafters, with oppressive, but ridiculous and
ephemeral authorities, and celebrities like the iconic Elvis,1
but above all
with the recurring figures of his wife and son. The ultimate bystander is
the one standing watching the drama in the picture. I don’t “see”
Damian’s pictures, I watch them, eagerly but warily, half-hopeful, but also
half-fearful of what will happen next, of what emotions might be stirred.
For Damian the first complexity is his own identity. Is he an underground
musician who just happens to be a professional artist? When he is
collecting scrap metal, could Travellers who comment, “Kushti to see you
doing a bit of real work, mush!” be half right? He is the outsider who,
curiously, seems to be at ease almost anywhere. He stands at the
confluence of three diasporic currents, his own family Huguenot and Irish
Traveller heritage and the English Romani heritage of his wife and inlaws.
Sometimes the allusions to history are mythic – preachers in the
forests, potheen in the hills or caravans from India, but more often they
are in little details, of clothing or utensils utterly characteristic of their
time, place and provenance (but you don’t realise this until Damian picks them out). Not least the cultural specificity is
in the written words which are sprinkled across much of his work, sometimes to the point of becoming a torrent of
concrete poetry. Phrases in Irish Traveller Cant or Gammon jostle knowingly with various dialects of Romani, and other
European languages and argots, scoring witty points off each other. Possessing a linguistic facility that would be the
envy of many anthropologists, Damian, like Shakespeare’s Henry V, “can talk with every Tinker in his tongue”.
You don’t have to know the meaning of every last Cant word to find meaning in Damian’s pictures, however. It is not
just every Tinker, but every watcher who will find himself addressed. The imagery of the family is universal, of man and
woman, wife and husband, parent and child. The works of Damian and Delaine constantly quote from each other, take
note of and respond to each other. They are not a joint artist, but the watchers find themselves the privileged observers
of an ever-deepening relationship. You don’t need to know the details of their son’s achievements to see the sometimes
perplexed but always committed development of the dialogue between father and son. The faces of the characters in
this family drama are embedded in the clothes and limbs and flowing hair of the other characters, sometimes loving,
sometimes angry, sometimes quizzical, always intimate, and always connected to their heritage by a myriad of peripheral
details. Exhibition by exhibition, the images broaden their scope and strike deeper and harder. In the end, don’t look at
these pictures for what they tell you about Damian and his family; look at them for what they will tell you about
yourself.
Thomas Acton
1
Painted at a time when there was much speculation about Elvis’s Scottish Traveller ancestry.
Damian Le Bas | 8988 | Damian Le Bas
Damian LE BAS [GB]
Damian and Delaine Le Bas | photo: Tim Walker
Biography
Born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, Great Britain, 30 January 1963
1985-87 Royal College of Art, London
1980-85 West Sussex College of Art & Design, Worthing, West Sussex
Lives and works in Worthing
Group & Solo Exhibitions
2006 International Festival d’Art Singulier, Roquevaire, France
Second Site, Abbot’s Hall, Museum of East Anglian Life,
Stowmarket, Suffolk, UK
Woolley Gallery, Portland, Oregon, USA
Second Site, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich University, London
2005 Acid Drops & Sugar Candy, Transition, London
Acid Drops & Sugar Candy, Fosterart, London
Eng-Er-Land, Studio at 102, Tea Building, London
Raw Vision 50, Serpentine, London
Divine Messages, Harmony Gallery, Los Angeles
Prague Biennial, Prague
Kolly Kibber, Hed Quarters, Brighton
Kartoffelkopf, Mish Mash Video, Rampart Creative Centre,
Whitechapel, London
Punk, People Unknown Collective, London
2004 Shop, Space Two-Ten-Two, London
Group Show, Studio at 102, Tea Building, London
She’s No Angel, James Colman, London
60 Seconds Darklight Film Festival, Dublin
Group Show, Studio at 102, Tea Building, London
Miniatures, Mark Woolley Gallery, Oregon, USA
Raw Vision, Equal rights to Creativity: An Exhibition of Outsider Art,
Mexico Gallery, London
60 Seconds, 291 Gallery, London
Gallery Artists, James Colman, London
Love n Bullets, Transition, UK
Tribe of One, Studio at 102, Tea Building, London
2003 Souvenir, Transition, London
Outlaws, James Colman / Pauline Flach, London
The Tail That Wags The Dog, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
‘Orrible Little Bastards’, Neon Gallery, London
Sense and Sensibility, Transition, London
2002 Idolize, Notting Hill Arts Club, London
Wanted: Dead or Alive, James Colman, London
International Festival d’Art Singulier, Roquevaire, France
The Art of War and Peace: Toward an End to Hatred, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, USA
Upstart, James Colman, London
CV
Damian Le Bas | 9190 | Damian Le Bas
2001 Obsessive Visions: Art Outside The Mainstream, England & Co, London
Outlaws, James Colman, London
The Art of War and Peace: Toward an End to Hatred,
American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, USA
Le Bas: Outsider Art at Made To Measure, London
Jaber, Damian Le Bas, Paul Duhem, Judy Saslow Gallery, Chicago
Shop, Brighton Festival, Brighton
Group Show, Judy Saslow Gallery, Chicago
Outsiders at The October, October Gallery, London
Intuition, Crescent Arts, Scarborough, UK
2000 Elvision 2000, Intuit: The Centre for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago
Damian and Delaine Le Bas at Broomhill, Broomhill Art Hotel and Sculpture
Garden, Barnstaple, UK
Group Show, England & Co, London
International Festival d’Art Singulier, Roquevaire, France
1999 Error and Eros: Love Profane and Divine,
American Visionary Art Museum, USA
1998 Art Unsolved: The Musgrave Kinley Collection of Outsider Art,
Irish Museum Of Modern Art, Dublin
Error and Eros: Love Profane and Divine, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, USA
International Self Taught / Outsider Art, St Brannocks Gallery, Norfolk, UK
Damian and Delaine Le Bas at Fashion Street, London
1997 Installation, Broomhill Art Hotel and Sculpture Garden,
Barnstaple, Devon, UK
Ingenious Creator, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, UK
1996 Outsiders & Co, England & Co, London
Group Show, Judy Saslow Gallery, Chicago
Group Show, Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
1995 Courtauld Galleries, London
Group Show, Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
Group Show, Gardener Arts Centre, University of Sussex, UK
1994 Paul Smith, New York
London Post, London
Another World / The Outsider, RONA Gallery, London
Group Show, Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
Group Show, Contemporary Art Huyse, Oirschot, The Netherlands
1993 Art in Boxes, England & Co, London
Art in Boxes, Nottingham Museum Art Gallery, Nottingham, UK
Group Show, Conway Hall, London
Catalogues & Other Publications
2006 Meet Your Neighbours – Contemporary Roma Art from Europe, Open
Society Institute: Arts and Culture Network Program, Budapest
International Festival d’Art Singulier,
Compagnie d’Art Singulier
2005 Monika’s Story – A Personal History of the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Collection,
Published on the occasion of a display of works from the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Collection
at Tate Britain
Prague Biennale 2nd
Expanded Painting, Giancarlo Politi Editore,
Flash Art (Outsider Art curated by James COLMAN. Essay
It’s Cold Outside – Let Me In by James COLMAN)
2004 ARTY: Greatest Hits, First Edition, Transition, Editions 02
2003 The Riddle from Gargantua, Translated by Damian LE BAS
The Tail wags the Dog, Outsiders in the Expressionist Tradition
from the Musgrave Kinley Collection of Outsider Art
2002 WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE, ARTY, Cathy LOMAX and Alex MICHON
International Festival d’Art Singulier,
Compagnie d’Art Singulier
2001 Obsessive Visions, Art Outside the Mainstream,
England & Co.
2000 International Festival d’Art Singulier,
Compagnie d’Art Singulier
1999 Butterfly (illustrations throughout). Issue No. 4,
Winter 99/00
1998 Art Unsolved, Musgrave Kinley Outsider Collection & Archive,
Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
1997 Ingenious Creator, Fifteen Artists from the Outsider
Collection & Archive, foreword by Monika KINLEY,
Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, UK
OUTSIDERS & CO, England & Co.
1993 Art in Boxes, England & Co.
1991 Sarlinger, Malmo KONSTHALL
Art en Marge présente des œuvres choisies par l’Aracanie Musée, Yolanda Gallery, Gallery Hamer, Outsiders,
Art en Marge, foreword by Françoise HENRION
1990 Outsider Art Exhibition, Alpha Cubic Gallery, Tokyo, foreword by Monika KINLEY
1987 Degree Catalogue 1987, Royal College of Art
Damian Le Bas | 9392 | Damian Le Bas
COLT 45, 2005 (detail)
acrylic on canvas, 127 x 127 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
The Apple of your Eye, 2005 (detail)
acrylic on canvas, 127 x 127 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
overleaf, pp. 94-95
Gypsyland, 2007
mixed media on printed map, 88.3 x 63.2 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
Damian Le Bas | 9594 | Damian Le Bas
Damian Le Bas | 9796 | Damian Le Bas
Gypsy Switzerland, 2007
pen on printed map, 82.6 x 123.3 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
Romeville (London), 2007
pen on printed map, 86 x 57 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
Roma Road Map of England and Wales, 2007
mixed media on printed map, 86 x 57 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
Damian Le Bas | 9998 | Damian Le Bas
“ROME”, 2007
printed map mounted on canvas, 18 x 12.8 cm each, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
Roma Europe, 2007 (detail)
mixed media on printed map, 76.5 x 67.3 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
Delaine Le Bas | 101100 | Delaine Le Bas
Artist’s Statement
“The nation’s morals are like teeth: the more decayed they are, the more it hurts to touch them.”
George Bernard Shaw
My work is at the point where Outsider, Folk and Contemporary Art meet,
combining a visionary, conceptual and craft approach. I live and work in the
same space 24/7. There is no separation of daily life and art; they are both
and one intertwined. There is a sense of claustrophobia within this scene of
domesticity. The idea of the home being the site of women’s creativity,
“embroidering the sampler in the parlour.” My Romani life adds to this
domestic claustrophobia of confined spaces and ritual cleaning habits of
domestic feverish madness. This is not the “happy housewife in the country
kitchen or the barefoot Gypsy idling away with a painted wagon in the
background.” My works are the struggle to escape the stereotypes, and l
employ symbols that the viewer thinks they understand. Union Jacks, Disney
characters, children’s animal motifs, nursery rhymes and traditional
embroidered cottages. I take these familiar images, retain their democratic
nature but create a shift in their meaning. Utilising a shared, universal store
of popular icons: badges, patches and slogans – all are images drawn
naturally from my own time. The author Colin Rhodes notes in ROOM: “The
national-cultural machine is present in dominant motifs like the skull and
crossbones… a mass-produced fabric patch invites the viewer to celebrate
the 1991 Gulf War.” Both are turned on their heads, but as a result of, not
in spite of, their intended meaning.
Scratch beneath the glittery surface and you will see a violent undercurrent,
exposing things for what they are, drawn in by the prettiness to be
confronted by what lurks beneath the surface, the wolf in sheep’s clothing
being a reoccurring theme.
Observing from two cultural viewpoints and creating a visual representation of those thoughts, an individual vision that
appears from this dual perspective. From one aspect, always being the ‘Outsider, a Visionary Voyeur’. Like fairy tales, all
very pretty on the outside but holding dark tales. Myths, stories and religious motifs assembled together. The good and
the evil, the dark and the light, politically correct and incorrect. As a Romani, my viewpoint has always been that of the
outsider, and this position of the ‘other’ is reflected in the materials and messages within my work. We live in a culture
of mixed values and garbled messages. My works are crafted from the disregarded and disparate objects of the car-boot
sale and the charity shop. A bricollage of materials. Employing the materials of the everyday, all formed together in a
manner that allows then to be precious yet reclaimed.
Delaine LE BAS [GB]
Delaine Le Bas | photo: Tara Darby
CV
Biography
Born in Worthing, West Sussex, Great Britain, 17 July 1965
1981-86 West Sussex College of Art & Design, Worthing, West Sussex
1986-88 St Martins School of Art, London
Lives and works in Worthing
Group & Solo Exhibitions
2006 Contemporary Gypsy, Mascalls Gallery, Paddock Wood, Kent, UK
International Festival d’Art Singulier, Roquevaire, France
Outsider Art, Moscow Museum of Outsider Art (in collaboration with the City of Bar)
Second Site, Abbott’s Hall, Museum of East Anglian Life, Stowmarket,
Suffolk, UK
Paper World, Transition, London
Second Site, The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich, London
Internal Guidance Systems, Pearl and Wonder Ballroom Locations, Mark
2005 Acid Drops & Sugar Candy, Transition, London
The Art of The Book, University of Missouri, St Louis, USA
Race, Class, Gender # Character, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, USA
Eng-Er-Land, Studio at 102, Tea Building, London
ROOM, Transition, London
Raw Vision 50, Serpentine, London
Divine Messages, Harmony Gallery, Los Angeles
Prague Biennial, Prague
Kartoffelkopf, Mish Mash Video, Rampart Centre, Whitechapel,
London
Punk, People Unknown Collective, London
2004 Shop, Space-Two-Ten-Two, London
She’s No Angel, James Colman, London
60 Seconds, Darklight, Film Festival, Dublin, Ireland
Miniatures, Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland, Oregon
International Festival d’Art Singulier, Roquevaire, France
Raw Vision, Equal Rights to Creativity: An Exhibition of Outsider Art,
Mexico Gallery, London
60 Seconds, 291 Gallery, London
60 Seconds, Space Two-Ten-Two, London
Gallery Artists, James Colman, London
Love n Bullets, Transition, London
Girl on Girl, Transition, London
2003 Souvenir, Transition, London
Outlaws, James Colman / Pauline Flach, London
’Orrible Little Bastards’, Neon Gallery, London
The Book Project, West End Arts Festival, Glasgow
Scritch Scratch, Transition, London
Delaine Le Bas | 103102 | Delaine Le Bas
2002 Wanted: Dead or Alive, James Colman, London
The Book Project, Norwich Fringe Festival, Norwich, UK
International Festival d’Art Singulier, Roquevaire, France
Upstart, James Colman, London
The Book Project, 5th
Contemporary Artist Book Fair, Dean Clough,
Halifax, UK
2001 Obsessive Visions: Art Outside the Mainstream, England & Co, London
Outlaws, James Colman, London
Le Bas: Outsider Art, Made to Measure, London
Shop, Brighton Festival, Brighton
Outsiders at The October Gallery, October Gallery, London
The Book Project, University of Lancaster, Preston, Lancashire, UK
2000 Elvision 2000, INTUIT: The Centre for Intuitive and Outsider Art,
Chicago
Damian & Delaine Le Bas at Broomhill, Broomhill Art Hotel and Sculpture
Damian & Delaine Le Bas at Raw Vision, Raw Vision Headquarters,
Hertfordshire, UK
International Festival d’Art Singulier, Roquevaire, France
The Book Project, touring exhibition, venues throughout the UK
International Romani Conference, Greenwich, UK
1999 Error and Eros: Love Profane and Divine, American Visionary Art
Museum, Baltimore, USA
Group Show, Raw Vision Headquarters, Hertfordshire, UK
1998 Error and Eros: Love Profane and Divine, American Visionary Art
Museum, Baltimore, USA
1997 International Self Taught / Outsider Art, St Brannocks Gallery, Norfolk, UK
Damian & Delaine Le Bas, Fashion Street, London
The Book Project, touring exhibition, venues throughout the UK
City, The Clerk’s House, London
Catalogues & Other Publications
2006 Meet Your Neighbours – Contemporary Roma Art from Europe, Open
Society Institute: Arts and Culture Program, Budapest
Second Site, Compiled by Thomas ACTON and Grace ACTON
International Festival d’Art Singulier,
Compagnie d’Art Singulier
2005 ROOM, Transition Editions
Prague Biennale 2nd
Expanded Painting, Giancarlo Politi Editore,
Flash Art (Outsider Art curated by James COLMAN. Essay It’s Cold Outside – Let Me In by James COLMAN)
2004 ARTY: Greatest Hits, First Edition
International Festival d’Art Singulier,
Compagnie d’Art Singulier
She’s No Angel, exhibition catalogue by Delaine LE BAS
2003 Outsider Art, Moscow Museum of Outsider Art
The Riddle from Gargantua – Translated by Damian James LE BAS
Illustrated by Damian and Delaine LE BAS
2002 WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE, ARTY, Cathy LOMAX and Alex MICHON
International Festival d’Art Singulier,
Compagnie d’Art Singulier
2001 Obsessive Visions: Art Outside The Mainstream, England & Co
Delaine Le Bas | 105104 | Delaine Le Bas
Nation of Dog Lovers, 2005
appliqué and embroidery on found flag, 88.5 x 65 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Cathy Lomax
Four Facts of Life, 2004-05
mixed media on fabric, appliqué and embroidery, 36.5 x 23.5 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Daniel Baker
Delaine Le Bas | 107106 | Delaine Le Bas
Damaged Goods, PART III, 2005
mixed media on fabric,
69.5 x 47.5 cm
collection of the artist
photo: Daniel Baker
Damaged Goods, 2005
installation, mixed media on fabric,
collection of the artist
photo: Daniel Baker
Damaged Goods, PART I, 2004
mixed media on fabric,
70 x 58 cm
collection of the artist
photo: Tara Darby
Damaged Goods, PART II, 2005
mixed media on fabric,
66.5 x 55 cm
collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
Delaine Le Bas | 109108 | Delaine Le Bas
WE HAVE A HISTORY, 2005
mixed media on fabric, embroidery and appliqué, c. 64 x 44 cm
Hampshire County Council
WE HAVE A HISTORY, 2005
mixed media on fabric, embroidery and appliqué, c. 29 x 24 cm
Hampshire County Council
WE HAVE A HISTORY, 2005
mixed media on fabric, embroidery and appliqué,c. 29 x 24 cm
Hampshire County Council
WE HAVE A HISTORY, 2005
embroidery on hanky, c. 29 x 24 cm
Hampshire County Council
WE HAVE A HISTORY, 2005
mixed media on fabric, embroidery and appliqué, c. 22 x 94 cm
Hampshire County Council, Hampshire
Delaine Le Bas | 111110 | Delaine Le Bas
Installation: Room at 28 St Elmo Road, 2005
mixed media Dolls I, II & III with collected objects, various dimensions, collection of the artist
photo: Tara Darby
Crucified, 2005
mixed media, height c. 50 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
Delaine Le Bas | 113112 | Delaine Le Bas
MEET YOUR NEIGHBOURS, 2005
mixed media on canvas, c. 150 x 150 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
BONDAGE? IDENTITY?, June 2003
video / DVD, 2 versions running a. 3 mins 20 secs b. 4 mins 17 secs, installation, collection of the artist photo: Delaine Le Bas
Delaine Le Bas | 115114 | Delaine Le Bas
The World of Gypsy Romance, 2006
installation of collected and found objects, box size c. 80 x 40 x 40 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Delaine Le Bas
Delaine Le Bas | 117116 | Delaine Le Bas
NEIGHBOURS MAKING EVIL, 2007
site-specific work, sketches
NEIGHBOURS MAKING EVIL, 2007
site-specific work, sketches
118 | Daniel Baker
NEIGHBOURS MAKING EVIL, 2007
mixed media, ready-made objects, etc.
site-specific installation
Otherness and Nostalgia Dressed in Stories
“Well, where to begin…”
A long journey of running and jogging along a thorny path, writes Kiba Lumberg
herself. The future artist, author and scriptwriter was born in the 1950s into a Romani
family of nine in the small town of Lappeenranta in Southeastern Finland. Dressed in
jogging pants and a sweater, Daddy’s girl Kiba – there is something in her that almost
compels you to call her by her first name – went with her father trading horses. All
people, the non-Roma majority included, were united by the poverty and optimism of
the post-war era. If you needed, say, to borrow flour, you could always count on the
community spirit and willingness to help. Many people still remember those days as a
happy time. However, Kiba’s home was filled to the brim like a sinking ship. It was
overcrowded, which meant that tensions constantly ran high.
Kiba is said to have been a withdrawn, even defiant child, and consequently considered at times difficult. The colourful
life in the Roma community fascinated but also oppressed her. According to Kiba, she grew to know the feeling of
otherness already as a child, otherness in relation to the non-Roma majority, but also otherness in relation to her own
people. She rebelled because she was unable to accept all the traditional customs of her community. An important
watershed in Kiba’s life was puberty. It meant a change of role, a transformation from child to adult, from girl to
woman. Now she, too, had to accept her place in the community; the tomboy would be moulded into a Roma woman.
The distinctive mark of Roma women in Finland is a voluminous skirt that can weigh up to ten kilos. As such, it is
unique in the world. Derived from women’s clothing in 19th
-century agrarian Finland, the costume remains a central
symbol in the customs of the community to this day. Dress, good manners and modesty may be more important
indicators of esteem and success in the Roma community than, say, education.
Kiba’s relationship to the traditional Roma woman’s dress was problematic. She, too, saw the skirt as a symbol. But in
addition to familial ties and related obligations, it also symbolised for her the oppressed status of women among the
Roma. By adopting the dress, a Roma girl was also expected to accept her place in the community and learn humility.
Consequently, the Roma woman’s skirt was in Kiba’s eyes also a prison uniform. This is not restricted to the Roma,
however; Kiba also recognises the problem among the majority population. “Whatever the community, they always try to
suppress the woman’s life energy. It is stronger or more visible in a minority, that’s all. I left.” When Kiba was thirteen,
she took her few belongings and entered an orphanage. Her family came to take her back, but the young girl kept her
head.
Endless Process
Although the rate of change and pace of internationalisation have been fast in Finland, even in the fields of culture and
art, the basic pattern has in many instances remained unaltered in a way that would merit more attention in the future.
Concepts involving nationality and national identity still seem to occupy a central role and meaning. We are interested
in the success of Finnish art in cultural arenas at home and abroad. The state is considering how to more efficiently
market art and Finnish cultural exports and to exploit more consistently the hidden potential of the copyright industry
on the global market.
Occasionally at least, it seems that the administration still wants to package and conserve art and the work of artists
under a single brand, a single framework and context. As long as the quality is right and it says Made in Finland on the
label, all is well. And quality is easy to measure, if crossing the threshold of media attention and the amount of publicity
120 | Kiba Lumberg Kiba Lumberg | 121
Kiba LUMBERG [FI] are taken as its indicators. Success becomes, then, merely a matter of marketing and related skills. Cultural products
become like any other products. All that is needed is that they be produced and that they offer enough material for a
well-conducted project. Whether art has something real to say or not, or whether the results of cultural work have any
effect on society, not to mention globally – this does not seem to matter. In such a scenario, the responsibility of actors
in art and culture, like that of any producers, is limited to the turnover and the growth of market shares.
In her article for the exhibition book Side by Side, museum director Marketta Seppälä discussed a painting by Kiba
Lumberg that was adopted as the symbol of the exhibition and the book. The painting depicts a naked man in a hot
desert, reaching for a box of sisu pastilles. The brand, familiar to all Finns, found itself in a totally alien environment.
Sisu pastilles came on the market in 1928 and are today almost a national icon. They have remained popular over
decades, and are still sold today. Apart from the pastilles themselves, the box has also kept its status. Designed by
Arnold Tilgman from Turun Kivipaino printers, the design with its gothic typeface still looks the same as it did originally.
The reference on the sisu box to Finnish sisu, the myth of an unbending and tenacious people of a small northern
country, still belongs to the common store of notions associated with Finnish identity. Sisu implies a special attitude to
life. As such, it is authentically Finnish, something that unites us, something one does not see in other nations. It is the
quality that has enabled the nation living on the outermost edge of Europe to clear rocky forests and successfully
cultivate for centuries the frost-prone fields of this northernmost part of the world. It is with sisu that Finns have gone
to battle and war against overwhelming enemies, and preserved Finnish culture, language and soul.
Sisu is part of the story Finns have made up about themselves, the shared story of Finnishness. History links sisu with
the land, the soil, the people and the language – concepts now being changed by internationalisation. Their meaning
and significance are simultaneously becoming deeper and thinner. Old stories fade, partly vanishing, partly being
replaced by new ones. Some collective narratives have been replaced by the fresh stories of different subcultures and
groups, told about themselves by themselves.
Skirts
What would it take for Kiba Lumberg to consider herself to be an accepted Finn, a member of Finnish culture – or
perhaps the question is, after all, wrongly asked? Kiba has settled her relationship with her own ethnic framework and
personal history. She left the Roma community while still a young girl, even though she continues to draw on its
culture, both for her own existence and also her art – observing life and its phenomena from both within and without.
She does not want to consider herself a Finn; she would much rather like to be a citizen of the world.
What, then, is Kiba’s position in the field of culture and art? Is it possible to see her and her art without curling up in
the received mould of interpretation: “an ethnic minority artist from Finland”. Kiba can, of course, use her ethnic
identity, but is it possible in the harsh arena of the art world to stay back, to remain an outsider who observes, searches
for new perspectives, standing on no man’s land? Can the actors in art, the art public, individual viewers see the
universal in Kiba’s work? Can she draft a message that could be construed in any context or community where the
encounter between individuals, minority and majority culture, the powers that be and the objects of power, takes place?
We wield power and point directions by defining and classifying. By building signs and making symbols, we direct the
gaze and mould perception. Being an outsider can offer an artist tools that aid her in her task. Kiba Lumberg tells
stories about and for herself to increase her understanding, to be able to live as she builds her own life. How can
viewers build up a personal relationship to Kiba’s work? Can they possibly put to use the new perspective offered by the
stories? What happens to viewers if they are blinded in their role and resort in their interpretation to received models, to
stereotypes? Will the figure lost in the desert stop reaching for the box of pastilles stand up and go to see what kind of
life there may be behind the next dune? And what demands will this place on Kiba? What kind of skirt must she wear
to be accepted as a full-fledged member in the field of art: a Roma skirt?
Esko Nummelin
Kiba Lumberg | photo: Nihad Nino Pus˘ija
122 | Kiba Lumberg Kiba Lumberg | 123
CV
Born in Lappeenranta, Finland in 1956
1979-81 Conservatory of Helsinki
1983-85 Artistic handicraft course for Gypsy entrepreneurs (University of Art and Design Helsinki UIAH)
1985-87 Extra student at UIAH
Solo Exhibitions
2006 50th
anniversary exhibition, Galleria Uusitalo, Helsinki
Julmuus on jokapäiväistä [Cruelty is Daily], Kiban Aurinkogalleria [the gallery of Kiba Lumberg],
Helsinki
2005 Take Me Away, Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland
Take Me Away, Kiban Aurinkogalleria, Helsinki
2004-05 Gallerie Art Adeleine
2004 Oluthuone William K, Helsinki
Varkaus Theater, Varkaus, Finland
2003 Gallerie Nasledie, St. Petersburg 300th
Anniversary (Finland Week), Russia Lappeenranta Art Museum, Finland
Galleri Cupido, Stockholm (together with Finnish National Museum)
Galleria Bronda, Helsinki
Finnish National Museum, Helsinki
Gallerie Pelin, Helsinki
Galleri Marius Projekt, Copenhagen, Denmark
South Carelian Art Museum, Lappeenranta, Finland
Oluthuone William K, Helsinki
Kiban Aurinkogalleria, Helsinki
2002- Kiban Aurinkogalleria, Helsinki
1998-2001 Kiba’s studio [work room exhibition], Helsinki
Nordea Bank, Helsinki
Bar Klaus Kurki, Helsinki
Solana Fitness, Helsinki
1997 Kallio Library, Helsinki
1996 Lappia House, Rovaniemi, Finland
Merita Bank, Porvoo, Finland
The League of Finnish Feminists, Helsinki
Lepakko Bar & Club, Helsinki
HSP Bank, Helsinki
Kuopio tanssii ja soi music festival, Kuopio, Finland
The Finnish-Swedish Cultural Centre of Hanasaari, Espoo, Finland
1984 Valkoinen sali, The Old Student House, Helsinki
Shared & Group Exhibitions
2005 Sovintola Galleria, Kesälahti, Finland
Finnish Painters’ Union exhibition at Cable Factory, Helsinki
2004 Maila Talvio Salonki, Hartola, Finland
Kallio kukkii ja kipinöi, annual Kallio district festival, Helsinki
2001 Finnish Painters’ Union exhibition at Cable Factory, Helsinki
Art Paimensaari, Savitaipale, Finland
Samaa maata, Pori Art Museum
The 98th
Annual Exhibition of Finnish Artists, Karkkila, Finland
1993 Suvi-Pinx, summer exhibition, Sysmä, Finland
1992 Suur-Helsingin ja Uudenmaan aluenäyttely, Helsinki
Finnish Painters’ Union exhibition at Cable Factory, Helsinki
Helsinki Cathedral Crypt
University of Art and Design UIAH, Helsinki
Works in Public Collections
Helsinki City Museum, Finnish National Museum, Helsinki City Art Museum, Pori Art Museum, Porvoo Art Museum
(Porvoo, Finland), Yrjö A. Jäntti Collection, South Carelian Art Museum (Lappeenranta, Finland), University of Art and
Design UIAH (Helsinki), Thominvest Oy
Other Artistic Activity
2006 Repaleiset siivet [Ragged Wings], novel, Sammakko Publishers
Helsinki kehyksissä [In Frames], book. Art from the collections of Helsinki City Museum,
collection of paintings from different decades
2005 First book event, Literature seminar, Pentinkulma, Urjala, Finland
2004 Musta perhonen [Black Butterfly], novel, Sammakko Publishers
Oluthuone William K, planning and realisation of a performance (Night of the Arts)
Transforming the manuscript Tumma ja Hehkuva Veri [Dark and Gleaming Blood] into a theater version,
premiere in Varkaus Theater 2004
Gypsy Comix, cartoon exhibition (sale exhibition)
2003 Planning of Kallio Kipinöi performance (music, scriptwriting, set, performing)
2002 Night of the Arts (performance planning and realisation)
Planning of Kallio Kipinöi performance (music, scriptwriting, set, performing)
Planning of Kallio Kipinöi performance (music, scriptwriting, set, performing)
A story in the book Elämäni Opettaja [Teacher of my Life]
1999 Mustalaiskuvia [Gypsy Pictures], Kiasma Museum of Modern Art
Cover painting Muisto Suomesta for the book based on the exhibition Samaa maata
Viisi Helsinki, Finlandläistä, video, script and direction, Mustalaiskuvia, video, script
1997 Tumma ja hehkuva veri, television series manuscript, viewed on TV2 Finland 1997-98 as a 4-episode series
(directed by Eija-Elina Bergholm), chosen to represent Finland in the 1998 Prix Italia drama series
1993 Kettupäivät (documentary video); Gräi-Hevonen, performance
Gypsy-comix, Manuscript for the Cartoon of the Month in Finnish magazine Ilta-Sanomat
1990 Script for documentary video Gräi-Hevonen
Bibliography
Laura SELIN – Esko NUMMELIN: Kiba Lumberg, Vie minut pois / Musta Perhonen – Take me away / Black Butterfly, Pori
Art Museum Publications 75, 2005
124 | Kiba Lumberg Kiba Lumberg | 125
Letters from the Sky, 2004
gouache, 64 x 88 cm, private collection
photo: Erkki Valli-Jaakola
Death on the trotting-track, 1995
gouache, 62 x 88 cm, National Bureau of Antiquities, The Archives for Prints and Photographs, Finland
photo: Ritva Bäckman
126 | Kiba Lumberg Kiba Lumberg | 127
Lace Tablecloth, 1995
gouache, 50 x 88 cm, National Bureau of Antiquities, The Archives for Prints and Photographs, Finland
photo: Ritva Bäckman
Birds that Fly at Night, 1995
gouache, 56 x 76 cm, National Bureau of Antiquities, The Archives for Prints and Photographs, Finland
photo: Ritva Bäckman
128 | Kiba Lumberg Kiba Lumberg | 129
Mother Hangs Laundry to Dry, 1995
gouache, 52 x 80 cm, National Bureau of Antiquities, The Archives for Prints and Photographs, Finland
photo: Ritva Bäckman
The Bottle-Cap Factory’s Waterfront, 1995
gouache, 88 x 104 cm, National Bureau of Antiquities, The Archives for Prints and Photographs, Finland
photo: Ritva Bäckman
130 | Kiba Lumberg Kiba Lumberg | 131
The Black Butterfly, 2000
installation: wood, fabric (skirt), paint, 310 x 280 x 30 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Erkki Valli-Jaakola
Bird Killer, 1995
gouache, 55 x 78 cm, National Bureau of Antiquities, The Archives for Prints and Photographs, Finland
photo: Ritva Bäckman
134 | Kiba Lumberg Kiba Lumberg | 135
Golden Moment, 1996
gouache, acrylic, 99 x 50 cm, Pori Art Museum
photo: Erkki Valli-Jaakola
Sisu, 1994
acrylic, 46 x 80 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Erkki Valli-Jaakola
1998 Szolnok, exhibition for prisoners
at Szolnok Prison
Graffity Art Cinema, Budapest
1996 Secondary school, Tiszavasvár, exhibition
supported by the Tiszadob Children’s Village, an
institution raising mainly Roma orphans
Prison at Tököl, exhibition organised
by the artists for the prisoners
1994 Hunnia Art Cinema, Budapest
Hotel Venus, Conference Hall, Budapest
1993 Hungarian naiva, exhibition organised by
etnographist Pál Bánszky in the lobby of the
American Embassy, Budapest
Cultural Centre of District XI, Budapest
1992 Naïve Museum, Kecskemét
Group Exhibitions
2006 Common Space – Issues of Ethnical Minority and
Cultural Identity in the Carpathian Basin,
Ernst Museum, Budapest
2004 Basic Instinct, contemporary Roma art in
Hungary, Hungarian Cultural Institute, Berlin,
curator: Ágnes Gelencsér and Tímea Junghaus
The Hidden Holocaust, Mûcsarnok/Kunsthalle,
Budapest, curator: János Sugár, Attila Nemes,
Júlia Fabényi, Készman József, Éva Gelencsér
and Tímea Junghaus
2003 Roma Religious Pictures, Hungarian Roma Parliament, Budapest
Paintings of the Tiszadob Artist Community, Hungarian Roma Parliament, Budapest
Orientalism in Contemporary Roma Art, Hungarian Roma Parliament, Budapest, curator: Tímea Junghaus
Contemporary Roma Women’s Art I, Hungarian Roma Parliament, Budapest,
curators: Emese Süvecz and Tímea Junghaus
Castle Gallery, Budapest, organised by the ROMART Foundation
Lobby of the Budapest University of Economic Sciences
2000 III Art Exhibition for Autodidact Roma Artists, Museum of Etnography, Budapest
1994 Hotel Gellert, Budapest
1993 Opens the first Roma art gallery in her home in the suburbs of Budapest, Kispest
Kossuth Klub, Budapest
1992 Hollókô village, Cultural Centre
Rátkai Club of community culture, Budapest
Local Municipality Museum, Veszprém
Cultural Centre, Kaposvár
Jurisics Palace, Kôszeg
1991 Vizivárosi Gallery, Budapest
136 | Omara Omara | 137
Mara Oláh started painting at the age of 43, after her mother’s death. Parallel with her autobiography, she was painting
major traumas in her life, in chronological order, using art as a therapeutic tool to come to terms with, and overcome,
humiliation, the grief felt over losing her mother, the anguish of alienation from her daughter, the physical pain of her
cancer.
Since 1992, all her pictures have been completed with inscriptions. She made the decision when, at a 1992 exhibition in
Szeged, her picture of a woman on all fours in the grass was presented as “Mara Resting,” when it, in fact, represented
Mara looking for her glass eye in the grass, a real occurance. At the same exhibition, the double portrait of OMARA and
her sister was put on display as “Lesbians”. Mara had to ask the curator what the word meant. Outraged by the
misunderstanding, she would later paint a picture with “lesbians”. The first blue pictures appeared in 1997, because, as
she puts it in her self-published autobiography: “Blue was always the colour of my daughter, blue was her best dress
when she was a little girl, she wanted her room to be painted blue when she grew up, it was her favourite. The happiest
day of my life was when my daughter came over to stay with me, we were making photos, and those which had my
daughter on turned blue. We had no idea what happened, I’m sure it was my daughter’s beautiful blue eyes that tainted
the pictures blue. In 1997 I had a dream which told me I should paint the picture I was to give to my daughter on her
name day in blue. I could hardly wait to lay my hands on the paint and the boards. I had ice blue and white at home.
And what did I paint? Myself with my hand on my heart, bowing deeply, thanking God for creating this in my dream.
My daughter is the person I love most in the world, and this way I could make my girl’s dream come true.”1
Painted in various tones of blue and complemented with textual explanations and wisdoms, the ‘blue pictures’ are
confessions, about the artist’s most important, personal experiences, her relationship with her daughter, her ordeals as a
Roma and a woman. The inscriptions not only verbalise the story of the narrative pictures, but also relate the time of
the event, and contain reflections that show their relevance for the present and the future. A good example is Mara and
the Policeman: the story of young Mara, who refused to stand with her bicycle behind the policeman in the line waiting
at the railway crossing, because she had arrived earlier; despite there being several eyewitnesses, the policeman beat her
almost to death.
In the picture that represents the engagement of Omara’s daughter, Mara gives voice to her indignation over the fiancé’s
refusal to marry her (a gadjo, Mara thinks, who had no intention of marrying a Gypsy girl), and adds the line to the
bottom: “AND IT TURNED OUT I WAS RIGHT, HE HAS LEFT MY DAUGHTER.” As if this sentence were the last mantra
of a magic chant. This is needed for the lesson to be complete: the evil one is punished, the prophecy of the priestessartist
becomes reality.
When it comes to representing the interests of the Roma, Omara does not confine herself to the visual arts: she speaks
out through actions and statements she makes on television, in printed and electronic journals. She visits prisons to talk
to the inmates and tell them about the life of the Roma on the “outside”. Although she would probably refrain from
using such words, hers is a politically conscious, activist art.
Tímea Junghaus
1
Omara festômûvész [Painter Omara]. Self-published, Szolnok: Repro Stúdió, 1997
Biography
Born in Monor, Hungary in 1945
Solo Exhibitions
1996-2005 Temporary exhibitions at the Omnibusz, Oriental Hotel, Budapest
2000 Hungarian Cultural Institute, Paris, organised and supported by ROMART Foundation
Kultiplex Cultural Centre and Cinema, Budapest
OMARA [H]
Omara | photo: Tímea Junghaus
138 | Omara Omara | 139
“IMMEDIATE LITIGATION”
“1974”
“MY DAUGHTER IS A SECRETARY AND SHE LOVES HER JOB”
“THIS IS WITHOUT PRECEDENT”
“IF – THE – TEACHER – IS – FRUSTRATED – BY – THE – FIRST – GRADERS SHE – SHOULD – LEAVE – THE – SCHOOL – AND – EARN A LIVING NOT
WITH – THE INNOCENT – CHILDREN – BUT – AT – THE – CORNER OF – THE – STREET”
“OUTRAGEOUS”
“UNBELIEVEABLE?”
“MR. DIRECTOR: DURING – MY- 40 – YEARS – I – HAVEN’T – SEEN – WRITING LIKE THIS”
“LITTLE MARIKA'S NOTEBOOK. I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THIS BAD GRADE”
“MOTHER” “MY DIAMOND DAUGHTER” “FATHER”
“WE MADE HER TAKE AN EXAM FOR THE WHOLE YEAR”
“TO ME NOT JUST THE CHILD BUT THE MOTHER IS GETTING A GOOD GRADE TOO”
“POOR DIRECTOR HAS DIED BY THE TIME I COULD – HAVE – SHOWN – HIM HER REPORT – CARD”
“NEXT DAY I TOOK HER TO ANOTHER SCHOOL IN THE COUNTRYSIDE SHE HAD TO TAKE A LONG BUS–RIDE- EVERY DAY – OF HER – FIRST-GRADE
SCHOOL-YEAR”
Immediate Litigation, 1998
oil on fibreboard, 60 x 90 cm, private collection
photo: barnabas toth
Little Mara in First Grade, undated
oil on fibreboard, 70 x 50 cm, private collection
photo: barnabas toth
“MARA IN FIRST GRADE”
“BUT IF SHE DOESN’T STAND IT SHE WILL END UP LIKE THE OTHER GYPSY KIDS IN
INSTITUTIONS”
1952
140 | Omara Omara | 141
My Daughter is Getting Married, 2001
oil on fibreboard, 50 x 70 cm, private collection
photo: barnabas toth
“I WAS RIGHT HE HAS LEFT MY DAUGHTER SINCE, JUST AS I FELT HE WOULD 1989”
“I KNOW THAT I THINK CONSERVATIVELY, BUT MY ONLY DIAMOND DAUGHTER DESERVES THE WHITE WEDDING DRESS, IF YOU ARE A
SERIOUS GROOM”
I Already Felt it Then That Who I Love is Not for Me, 2000
oil on fibreboard, 60 x 90 cm, private collection
photo: barnabas toth
“THE PEASANT – MOTHER – OF – THE – GROOM – SENT – THE – POLICE – AFTER – ME – SO THAT – THE – ENGAGEMENT – WOULD – BE –
CANCELED” “1962”
overleaf, pp. 142-143
Nursery School, 1998
oil on fibreboard, 80 x 50 cm, private collection
photo: barnabas toth
NURSERY SCHOOL 1971
“ SHE – HAS – NEVER – FORGIVEN – ME – AND – I AGREE – WITH – HER"
“MY – LITTLE – DOLL, – I – WILL – HURRY – BACK, – I AM – JUST – GOING – TO – WORK, – SO WE – CAN- HAVE – EVERYTHING,- WE HAVE
– TO LIVE – UP TO – THE – EXPECTATIONS, YOU – ARE – A MAN – TOO – GYPSY"
“THE DAY BEFORE I DID NOT GET THERE ON TIME, BECAUSE OF A TRAIN ACCIDENT AND THE TEACHER TOLD HER
THAT SHE WILL BE HANDED TO THE POLICE."
Biography
Marian Petre was born in 1963 in Draganesti-Olt, Romania,
into a family of Roma blacksmiths
1982 He graduated from the High School of Art in Craiova, Romania
1983 He was admitted to the Nicolae Grigorescu Fine Art Institute,
from which he graduated in 1987
2000 Founder and President of Artisrroma, an organisation of Roma visual
artists
Since 1990 he has worked as a teacher of plastic-education at school.
Exhibitions & Projects
Fine Art Biennale, Galati, Romania (2002); Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space Exhibition Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2000-2003)
Solo Exhibitions
Bucharest (1997-1998), Artisrroma exhibition, Bucharest and Rimnicu-Valcea, Romania (2003)
Group Exhibitions
Municipal Art Showroom, Bucharest (1999-2002); Dantesca, Ravenna, Italy (1999); Art between the Studio and the
Museum, Ramnicu Valcea, Romania (1999); Small Sculpture Biennale, Arad, Romania (1998); Fine Art Biennial, PiatraNeamt,
Romania (1997); 35 Studio, Bucharest (1995); The Youth Exihibition, Bucharest, Romania (1987)
Art Colonies
Bulgary – Veliko Tarnovo (2004), Reed, Tulcea – Romania (2004), Graphic and Drawing Camp – Ramnicu Valcea (2003)
Habitat and Art in Romania program – Ramnicu Valcea (2001-2003), Awards: The 3rd
Prize for sculpture at the
Municipal Art Showroom, Bucharest (2002), Hungary – International Camp of Visual Arts in Surdopuspoki (2001)
Brancusiana, Targu Jiu (2001), Oarba de Mures (1996), Scanteia (1988), Romania – Covasna (1987)
Bibliography & Press
2006 Meet Your Neighbours – Contemporary Roma Art from Europe, Open Society Institute, Tímea JUNGHAUS (ed.)
National Art Showroom, Romanian Professional Artists’ Association, Bucharest
2003 Beyond the Smith’s Sign, Ziarul Financiar, Corneliu ANTIM
Rromaniart – First Exhibition of Roma Contemporary Art from Romania, Adevarul
1999 Art between the Studio and the Museum, H.A.R. Foundation, Luiza BARCAN
Habitat and Art in Romania – H.A.R. Foundation, Alexandru Nancu
1998 An Aesthetics of Metamorphosis, Curentul, Corneliu ANTIM
1997 Nine o’clock, Gallery, Cristina Maria ANGELESCU
Between Abstract and Figurative, Azi, Luiza BARCAN
144 | Marian Petre Marian Petre | 145
Marian PETRE [RO]
Marian Petre | photo: Livia Teodorescu
The Trace of Suffering, 2002
wood and metal, 165 x 12 x 12 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Marian Petre
146 | Marian Petre Marian Petre | 147
In Memoriam, 2003
metal, 185 x 19 x 19 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Marian Petre
The Trace, 2002
wood and metal, 28 x 22 x 18 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Marian Petre
148 | Nihad Nino Pusˇija Nihad Nino Pusˇija | 149
Artist’s statement
For the last fifteen years, I have consciously chosen to live and photograph in Berlin. There is no other metropolis in the
world in which two divided halves are trying to grow back together. Nowhere else can you find both the division, and
the merging, between the East and West Blocs. In this time and place of transition, I have the unique opportunity to
move around as an artist, exploring Berlin's microcosms of its streets, food stands and even park benches, as change in
progress. Through my eyes, as a foreigner, and with the tool of artistic photography, the faces of the inhabitants
become projections of the events.
Photography is used as a medium to (re)gain one's identity and self-image. This is true for the subjects I capture, as well
as for my own experience and role within this societal process of transition. It becomes increasingly important for me to
find strategies and approaches to communicate my own experiences as part of the whole and make them heard.
The Roma and their unique personal stories are at the centre of attention in portrait photography series at the turn of
this century. These photographs of individuals become defining documentaries for whole groups of people.
It is my artistic goal to seek out microcosms, here, where I live and work, capturing the small changes and holding onto
the unassuming, so that the resulting series of photographs will defy the vague generalisations of my surroundings and
daily life.
Biography
Born in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in 1965
2001 Visits the classes of Marina Abramovic´ at the Academy of Arts in Braunschweig
Birth of Namik Luis Pusˇija
1994- Project leader of “Zyklop foto fabrik” [Cyclops photo factory], a group of young artists who had
to abandon their studies because of the war in former Yugoslavia, supported by the Kunstamt Kreuzberg
and NGBK (New Society of Fine Art), Berlin; main themes: Bosnia, refugees, conflict resolution,
integration and Roma in Europe
1992- Lives in Berlin, Germany
1988-92 Art photo projects and studies in England, Belgium, Italy and USA
1988- Freelance photographer
1985 Commencement of journalism study at University of Sarajevo; trainee photojournalist
and photo illustrator for the Bosnian independent daily newspaper Oslobodjenje in Sarajevo
(comparable to The Independent, London)
Memberships
2001 Association of Artists (Ars Bosnae), Berlin
1993 New Society of Fine Art (NGBK), Berlin
1991 Association of Fine Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ULUPUBiH), Sarajevo
Selected Exhibitions
2006 Roma and Gadje, Kortárs Roma Galéria, Budapest
National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo
2B Galéria, Budapest
2005 180°, Schwartzsche Villa, Berlin (catalogue)
Nihad Nino PUS˘IJA [BIH/D] PEER Gallery, New York
Centre for Contemporary Central European Art, Usti nad Labem,
Czech Republic
Galéria Jána Koniarka, Trnava, Slovakia
Galerija SKUC, Ljubljana
2004 We are what we are, Aspects of Roma Life in Contemporary Art,
Minoriten Galerien, Graz (catalogue)
Transit, Life of Roma in Rome, camp Casillino 900, Rome
Quo Vadis, Solarised Portraits, National Gallery of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Sarajevo
2003 Représentation du Travail / Travail du Représantation, portraits,
Centre de la Photographie, Geneva, Switzerland
gallery FAXX, Kunststichting Tilburg, The Netherlands
cimdata.de, solarised portraits, Galerie 35, Berlin
2002 Zwischen Himmel und Erde, Hochschule für Künste,
Bremen, Germany (catalogue)
Fotografische Impressionen, Museum Europäischer Kulturen,
Berlin (catalogue)
NGBK (New Society of Fine Arts) Gallery, Berlin
2001 Museet for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark
Kulturverein, Rottenburg, Germany (catalogue)
2000 Sarajevo Self-Portrait, life of Refugees and Roma from Bosnia in Berlin and Germany,
The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, USA (photo book)
Heimat Kunst, photographic portraits on textiles, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Futura Existentia, solarised portraits, Gallery Kunstraum, Berlin
1999 Gallery Novi Hram, Sarajevo
Formen sind Begriffe / Begriffe sind Formen, drag portraits, Gallery Nagornaja, Moscow
Integration, photographic portraits on textiles, Gallery Kunstraum, Berlin
1998 Gallery Collegium Artisticum, Sarajevo
1997 Duldung, life of Roma from Bosnia in Berlin, Cyclops photo factory, exhibition project supported
by NGBK Gallery, Berlin (catalogue)
Gallery INA, Zagreb (catalogue)
1992-96 Aus der Hölle ins Ungewisse, life of Roma and refugees from Bosnia in Germany,
in twenty cities so far, including: Berlin, Hamburg, Bielefeld, Lübeck, Cologne, Kiel...
1996 Komparsen, filmed portraits of prisoners, Gallery Brotfabrik, Berlin (catalogue)
1995 Queens, drag portraits, exhibition and performance at Moabit florists, Berlin
1994 Raumeroberung, Cyclops photo factory exhibition and performance, gallery Süd Ost Europa Kultur, Berlin
Ave Maria, photos of found objects at Hamburg harbour, Galerie Franz Mehring, Berlin
Hotel Europa, photo biennial, Salon Futura, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
1993 Strano – Fremd – Obcy, homage exhibition and performance; organiser “Aliens with us”
Kunstamt Schöneberg, Berlin
1991 NOB, Galerija Kamerni Teatar, Sarajevo
1988 Fotografija, Galerija Crvena, Sarajevo
Selected Bibliography
Tímea JUNGHAUS, “Egy ‘báromannus’ Magyarországon, Nihad Nino Pusˇija fotómûvész Berlinbôl”,
Amaro Drom, Roma Magazin, Budapest, May 2006
Michael NUNGESSER, “Heimat Kunst: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin,” Kunstforum, July-September 2000
Nihad Nino Pus˘ija
ˇ
150 | Nihad Nino Pusˇija Nihad Nino Pusˇija | 151
TRIPTYCH 1996, 2007
installation, wallpaper, photos, 60 x 55 cm each, collection of the artist
photo: Nihad Nino Pusˇija
My art is action: it is not a goal but a tool.
It helps me to reach completeness, where art is no longer needed. It is when I
do not need art that I know I have reached completeness.
What is completeness? It is accepting opposites, experiencing universality, reevaluating
values.
What is action? I use the word not in its common sense, but to denote “the
doing of life”; action need not be awe-inspiring or herculean; its point is its
infinite simplicity, which outshines all kinds of artistic action.
Everyone has their roots. Man is no different from other living creatures.
Compare humans and trees: they all gain their nourishment from the earth,
but they also need care in the “upper region,” without which they cannot
grow; we humans are responsible for our own care. This is the moment when
harmony comes into being. (...)
Born in Ilmenau, Germany, in 1978
Education
2001-2006 Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest – Sculpture programme, Tamás Körösényi
1998-2000 Vocational Secondary and Training School for Building and Ornamental Art, Budapest
1993-1998 Pollack Mihály Technical College, Pécs
Solo Exhibitions
2006 Óbudai Cellar Gallery
Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Epreskert, Budapest
Group Exhibitions
2007 Vasarely Museum, Pécs
2005 Ericsson Art Gallery, Budapest
Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Epreskert, Budapest
2004 Stuttgart, Ungarisches Kulturinstitut
2003 Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Epreskert, Budapest
2002 Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Barcsay Hall, Budapest
Awards
2007 XX National Stauette Biennial, Pécs – 2nd
Prize
2003 XXVI National Scientific Students’ Associations Conference – 2nd
Prize
2002 Barcsay Prize, Budapest
2000 European Stone Festival, Rencontres de la Pierre, Junas, France – 1st
Prize
Bibliography
Gábor RIEDER, “Kéznyomtól az üvegszilánkig”, Új Mûvészet, 2006, September XVII 9. p. 12-13
Catalogue of the Graduating Students, Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, 2007
152 | Jenô André Raatzsch Jenô André Raatzsch | 153
Jenô André RAATZSCH [H/D] My Mother's Apron, 2005
copperplate, mixed media,
100 x 60 x 3 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Jenô André Raatzsch
Jenô André Raatzsch | photo: the artist
154 | Jenô André Raatzsch Jenô André Raatzsch | 155
Sommersault, 2005 (detail)
photo: Jenô André Raatzsch
Sommersault, 2005
mixed media, 300 x 90 x 35 cm, collection of the artist
photo: Jenô André Raatzsch
Group Exhibitions
1997 Students exhibition, Belgrade, objects and installations
Memorial Chamber in the Belgrade Fortress, objects
1996 Student exhibition, Belgrade,
objects, paintings and drawings
Youth Centre, Belgrade, drawings
City Museum, Valjevo, paintings
1995 National students' drawing competition (1st
Prize), Serbia
Lelic, installations, Valjevo
Student exhibition, Belgrade, drawings and paintings
City Gallery, Valjevo, drawings and paintings
1994 Student exhibition, Belgrade, drawings
1993 Student exhibition, Belgrade, drawings
City Gallery, Valjevo, drawings
Other Creative Activities
Founded
2004 Galbeno LLC
Amalipen Romani (Gypsy) community online (www.amalipen.net)
2002 Beograd Saptac periodical
2000 Romani Crisis Network
Amala Summer School for Romani Culture
Galbeno Co.
International (8 East European countries) Romani artists group “G” for joint exhibitions
and promotion of Romani artists' work
1997 Kal (Romani-Gypsy music band)
1996 Periodical Prosopon
Independent artists' group “Prosopon” (ancient Gk: personhood)
Organised
2003 International Romani artists' retreat, Valjevo, Serbia
2002 The Brass Music Oscar – Documentary movie – translator and location manager
(Arte / NDR / WDR Discovery Channel)
2001 International Romani artists' retreat, Valjevo, Serbia
1999 Went to Rajko Djuric's School for Romani Culture and Language, Berlin, for one month;
inspired to begin conscious Romani activism, drawing on earlier experiences: father was
activist, educating people to say “Roma” instead of “Tzigani” (“Gypsies”), founding a local Romani activist
theatre, and producing the first Romani-language radio broadcasts (news and discussion) in 1978
1997 With Romani Cultural Centre in Belgrade and the Romani theatre Vareso Aver in Budapest, presented four
plays in Romanes, serving as translator, set designer, centre manager and publicist. Translated the plays Blood
Wedding by Lorca, Jacques or Obedience by Ionesco, Cirkusiada by Jovan Nikolic (Romani), and Bahanalie
by Goran Stefanovski
Violinist/singer, co-founder of the band Kal
1996 Artists' retreat at spiritual centre Lelic
156 | Dusan Ristic Dusan Ristic | 157
Dusan Ristic commenced his studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1993, after seven years of private training,
during which he mostly experimented with objects, photography, installations and landscape art. The war in Serbia and
Montenegro (the former Yugoslavia) had begun in 1992. After a few productive years, Dusan could no longer see any
point in working on art during the war. Consequently, in 1997 he stopped studying or producing any art for what was
to be seven years. He left Serbia for Budapest, Hungary, where he got involved in the Romani movement and human
rights work. The only exception to this break in his artistic work was the installation I Simply Cannot Understand
(Budapest, 2000), inspired by, and dedicated to, Anastazia Balasova, a Roma woman who was murdered in her own
home by racists.
During this time, and especially after the end of the war in 2001, Dusan’s supervising professor constantly encouraged
Dusan to return to the Belgrade Faculty of Fine Arts to finish his studies. Dusan took up painting again in early 2004,
completed his degree a few months later, and moved to California, where he began a new life and a new art.
Recently, Dusan returned to his artistic roots, working in traditional media (oil on canvas).
Inspired by California’s sun, light and horizon, he created a new series, called Genetic Code.
Suzanne Leonora
Biography
Born in Valjevo, Serbia, in 1970
Lives and works in San Francisco, California, USA
Dusan Ristic mostly experiments with objects, photography, installations and landscape art, occasionally returning to his
artistic roots, working in traditional media (oil on canvas).
A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Dusan has exhibited his work in Eastern Europe and the USA
Education
2004 Graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Belgrade
1993 Following formal training, commenced Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Belgrade,
working in various media: clay, plaster, wax, fired clay, photography, cardboard, light, installations
1992 Studied with Prof. Gradimir Petrovic
1991 Shumatovachka (standard preparatory school for University of Belgrade art department)
1990 Studied with Prof. Svetlana Knezevic, Belgrade
1986-1989 Studied with Prof. Milomir Romanovic, Valjevo (Serbia)
Solo Exhibitions
2004 Backstage Gallery in San Francisco, Paintings
2000 Exhibition for International Roma Day, Central European University, Budapest
This was the only exhibition during the break 1997-2004
1997 Introspection, Students Cultural Centre, Belgrade
Youth Centre of Novi Sad (Serbia)
Dusan RISTIC [SRB / USA]
Dusan Ristic | photo: the artist
158 | Dusan Ristic Dusan Ristic | 159
Global Warming 1/2, 2007
digital print, 397 mm x 467 mm
collection of the artist
Global Warming 1/3, 2007
digital print, 199 mm x 276 mm
collection of the artist
160 | István Szentandrássy István Szentandrássy | 161
István Szentandrássy is the only disciple of Tamas Péli, the prophet of Hungarian Roma art. He is now the leader of
what is a school of painting in the classical sense, which Tamás Péli created in the early 1980s, and which still has
several young, exceptionally talented followers.
By his own confession, Szentandrássy employs the great Renaissance masters’ bravura technique in works that are
modern in subject and reflect on the problems of contemporary society. He finished one of his chief works in 2004. The
large canvases, which illustrate Lorca’s Gypsy ballads, represent the quintessence of Roma visual art. They are the artist’s
parable for the coming generations of Roma artists and intellectuals: they are a compendium of the iconography of
Roma visual culture, and offer a virtuoso combination of the Roma narrative tradition and contemporary Roma
literature. These pictures are astonishingly suggestive Roma visions, with charging wild horses, exotic Gypsy princesses,
beggars, musicians and fatal romances.
Tímea Junghaus
Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1957
Lives and works in Budapest
István SZENTANDRÁSSY [H]
Illustration, 1983
pencil on paper, 60 x 50 cm, collection of the artist
photo: László Szelényi
István Szentandrássy | photo: László Szelényi
162 | Norbert Szirmai / János Révész Norbert Szirmai / János Révész | 163
Norbert SZIRMAI / János RÉVÉSZ [H]
János RÉVÉSZ
Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1984
Lives and works in Budapest
Norbert SZIRMAI
Born in Hódmezôvásárhely, Hungary, in 1981
Lives and works in Budapest
Still
Fradi [FTC, Hungary] is better, 2002
DVD, 15 min 37 sec, Black Box Foundation
Director: Norbert Szirmai, Camera: János Révész
Still
Fradi [FTC, Hungary] is better, 2002
DVD, 15 min 37 sec, Black Box Foundation
Director: Norbert Szirmai, Camera: János Révész
Norbert Szirmai / János Révész | 165164 | Norbert Szirmai / János Révész
Stills
Fradi [FTC, Hungary] is better, 2002
DVD, 15 min 37 sec, Black Box Foundation
Director: Norbert Szirmai, Camera: János Révész
Bibliography | 167166 | Bibliography
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An Exhibition by four artists from Roma/Gypsy/Traveller communities, University of Greenwich, London, 2006
Council of Europe, Trends in social cohesion, No.1 – Promoting the policy debate on social cohesion from a comparative perspective, Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
2001
Ágnes DARÓCZI and István KERÉKGYÁRTÓ (eds.), The First National Exhibition of Autodidact Gypsy Artists in Hungary, Budapest, 1979
Ágnes DARÓCZI and István KERÉKGYÁRTÓ (eds.),The Second National Exhibition of Autodidact Gypsy Artists in Hungary, Debrecen, Hungary, 1989
Ágnes DARÓCZI and István KERÉKGYÁRTÓ (eds.), The Third National Exhibition of Roma Artists in Hungary, Budapest, 2000
Ivan DODOVSKI (ed.), Multiculturalism in Macedonia: Emerging model, Open Society Institute, Macedonia, 2005
Júlia FABÉNYI et al. (eds.), The Hidden Holocaust, Mûcsarnok/Kunsthalle, Budapest: Mûcsarnok, 2004
Dragica FELJA, Representation of Roma Culture in Contemporary Film, PHD Dissertation, 2004
Nicolae GHEORGHE and Thomas ACTON, Citizens of the world and nowhere: Minority, ethnic and human rights for Roma during the last hurrah of the nation-state,
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Stewart HALL, Cultural Identity and Diaspora, Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, ed. Patrick WILLIAMS and Laura CHRISMAN, Harlow: Longman, 1993
Sandra JAYAT, Premire Mondiale D’art Tzigane. La Conciergerie, 6-30 May 1985, Paris
Tímea JUNGHAUS (ed.), Meet Your Neighbours – Contemporary Roma Art from Europe, Budapest: Open Society Institute, 2006
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Swiss Cultural Programme South-East Europe
and Ukraine, a programme of SDC
and Pro Helvetia
This book is published in conjunction with la Biennale di Venezia, 10 June – 21 November 2007
Commissioner of the Roma Pavilion, Palazzo Pisani Santa Marina: Open Society Institute
Curator: Tímea Junghaus
Editors | Tímea Junghaus, Katalin Székely
English translation | Árpád Mihály
Copy editing | Adèle Eisenstein, Linda Vadász
Scientific board | Viktor Misiano, art historian, international curator and critic; Thomas Acton, Professor of Romani
Studies, University of Greenwich; Barnabás Bencsik, curator, Director of ACAX | Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange;
Dragan Klaic, Theater scholar and cultural analyst; Marketta Seppala, Director of the Frame Foundation, Commissioner of
the Nordic Pavilion 2007; Katalin Székely, art historian, art critic
The Arts and Culture Network Program of Open Society Institute:
Milena Dragicˇevic-Sesic, Acting Chair of the Arts and Culture Advisory Board; Alexander Djumaev, Theodore Levin and
Irena Veisaite, Members of the Arts and Culture Advisory Board; Andrea Csanádi, Program Manager; Rita Bakradze,
Program Coordinator; Enikô Soós, Program Assistant
Cover design and spreads | Károly Királyfalvi | www.solid.hu
Pages 2-9 | from wish you were here series by Daniel Baker
2007 © Open Society Institute | www.soros.org
Arts and Culture Network Program
© of the works illustrated by the artists
© of the texts by the authors
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