Apparatus 22 - To The Reading Room. We Applied Ourselves To Mid-air Visits.

About

The labor
An almost cubical room coated in light grey.
Rather crowded, the specimens on the lateral walls are essentially touching each other.
Ten in total, they are physically anchored (except one shimmering like a lone star), silent (except one sculpting sounds with air just as rumors do), arranged in four genres (one having subgenres too).
Each inscribed with quintessential thoughts.

Not petrified?
Fragilities and strengths, intensities and metaphors wide open before our very eyes, ready to be dissected raw in tiny fragments.
Notes aplenty in the grey room are proof that such precise procedures have been performed before. While carefully arranged, the abundance of speculations of the SUPRAINFINIT(~beyond~hypertext~) variety makes the notes work as a vortex.

User manual not necessary
Contrary to the general belief, the unraveling grants the specimens even more vitality, as if imaginary blood was being pumped by each visitor taking precious time in the reading room.
Gratification would mean for the specimens to be loved or contested, echoed and taken home as travelling thoughts and images.

What is being unfolded here?
A material for contamination.
Hundredfold.

Apparatus 22 is a transdisciplinary art collective founded in January 2011 by current members Erika Olea, Maria Farcaș, Dragoș Olea together with Ioana Nemeș (1979 - 2011) in Bucharest, Romania. Beginning with 2015 they are working between Brussels and Bucharest.

They see themselves as a collective of dreamers, researchers, poetic activists and (failed) futurologists interested in exploring the intricate relationships between economy, politics, gender studies, social movements, religion and fashion in order to understand contemporary society. A recent topic of research and reflection in the practice of Apparatus 22 is SUPRAINFINIT universe: a world-making attempt to use hope critically in navigating present and future.

In their very diverse works - installations, performances, text based-shapes, reality is mixed with fiction and storytelling and all merge with a critical approach drawing knowledge & experience from design, sociology, literature and economics.

The work of Apparatus 22 was presented in exhibitions at La Biennale di Venezia 2013, MUMOK, Vienna (AT), BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (BE), Museion, Bolzano (IT), Kunsthalle Wien (AT), Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles (BE), Brukenthal Museum Contemporary Art Gallery, Sibiu (RO), Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (DE), Contemporary Art Museum (MNAC), Bucharest (RO), KunstMuseum Linz (AT), La Triennale di Milano (IT), Loft - Servais Family Collection, Brussels (BE), TRAFO Gallery, Budapest (HU), Futura, Prague (CZ), Ujazdowski Castle – Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw (PL), Salonul de Proiecte, Bucharest (RO), Onomatopee Eindhoven (NL), TIME MACHINE BIENNIAL OF CONTEMPORARY ART, D-0 ARK UNDERGROUND, Konji (BIH), Osage Foundation (Hong Kong), Progetto Diogene, Turin (IT), Closer Art Centre, Kiev (UA), CIAP, Hasselt (BE), Barriera, Turin (IT), Suprainfinit Gallery, Bucharest (RO), GALLLERIAPIÙ, Bologna (IT); performances at MAK, Vienna (AT), Steirischer Herbst, Graz (AT), Stedelijk Museum with De Appel CP Amsterdam, (NL), Yarat Academy, Baku (AZ), Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (DE), Drodesera Festival, Dro (IT), Villa Empain, Brussels (BE), Cité internationale des arts, Paris (FR) etc.;

Apparatus 22 also works beyond institutions via performances in public spaces, interventions in private spaces and other hybrid forms.

*Apparatus 22 would like to thank Lateral ArtSpace, add, Suprainfinit Gallery (Bucharest), Temad and to the generous contributors for the Reading Room notes.

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A cultural project co-financed by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The Administration of the National Cultural Fund is not responsible for the content of the project or the manner in which the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.

Partner: Fabrica de Pensule