Cultura de casă

I met Mircea Nicolae/Ionuț Cioană (1980–2020) in the spring of 2009 at the eighth opening at Gallery 29, located in his apartment in Pantelimon. I invited him to one of the early performances of Home Alone at lorgean theatre, after which he sent me an enthusiastic email. In one of the following editions, he became a performer himself. We started meeting more frequently and became friends. When I began researching international homemade culture projects (though at the time, I wasn’t yet using the term „homemade culture”), he sent me links and information. Mircea Nicolae was my first curator, including The Objects of Solitude (https://schloss-post.com/objects-of-solitude/) in Young Romanian Art at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Venice. From our meetings came Ce bine îmi pare că ați venit (How Glad I Am That You Came), where, together with Mădălina Dan, we became professional visitors, transforming visits into performances. He got upset because one time we didn’t follow the script exactly and left the project. For a while, we didn’t speak, but eventually, we resumed our friendship. In 2014, I became Mircea’s curator, proposing a performance for lorgean theatre. The result was Zone Vagi (Vague Zones), where he tackled a theme close to my heart: the porous boundaries between art and everyday life, attempting to create mental maps of the transitional spaces between the two realms. With that year’s productions at lorgean theatre, we participated in the Sibiu Fringe Festival, where he presented the piece in the living room of an old house getting strong positive reactions from the fellow artists who were amazed by his inner universe.

Ionuț was easy to hurt. At times, I found comfort in realizing that, by comparison, I wasn’t such a sensitive person. I loved making him laugh, drawing out deep, guttural chuckles that would erode his generally somber demeanor. I was shocked when I heard of his death, and like many others, I initially believed he had taken his own life. I miss our meetings, our debates, the sentimentality, the fun, the eloquence, and our deliberate bluntness sometimes. Looking back, I realize how much Ionuț shaped my attitude toward the art world.

One of his most famous projects was „Apartment Gallery”, in which he transformed the living room of his apartment into an exhibition space. I was interested in the details of the transformation. The interview, conducted in 2009, is being published now for the first time:

Dear Ionut,

I have started writing my master’s thesis, the topic of which is „reimagining domestic space through artistic projects”, provisional title, and since I have had similar experiences, it would be very helpful if you could answer some questions, which I have also asked myself.

I am attaching them in a doc. There are not many, I hope they will not take up much of your time. If you feel the need to add something specific related to the subject, do not hesitate. It took me some time to detach myself so that I could start writing and I think that you are also quite estranged and can look at it objectively.

All the best from Bucharest,

Lorin

1. What did the room look like before it became an exhibition space ? Before it was transformed, the room had an old set of furniture purchased by my mother in the 1990s for 25,000 lei from a small workshop in Colentina neighbourhood. It was handcrafted by a carpenter. It included an extendable sofa bed where I had slept until I bought a simple bed frame and mattress. The room also contained miscellaneous items: small tables, chairs, plastic basins, drying laundry, and a broken TV. The walls were yellowed and dusty. The room was mostly abandoned by my family especially after the TV broke. Each of us had our own space in the house: me with my computer, my mother with her TV, and my sister with her own TV and computer. The room was left as a cluttered space where the cat played and hid among the furniture, sheets, and other items.

2. What changes did you make to transform it? What furniture was kept? I painted the walls white, removed the extendable sofa, and cleared out unnecessary furniture to the balcony. The old chandelier, which gave off dim light, was replaced with three aluminum tracks mounted to the ceiling, fitted with nine halogen spotlights. I kept a red velvet three-seater sofa, two matching armchairs, a round table my mother insisted on keeping, two large dark wood cabinets, and a Persian red carpet with geometric patterns. I also removed the curtains, exposing the balcony and the view of Morarilor Park. Initially, I hoped to clear out all the furniture and create a „white cube” aesthetic to align with my love for modernist design. However, my mother decided against it. To achieve a compromise, I created three polystyrene surfaces that matched the top of the cabinets and table, painted them a flawless white, and illuminated them with halogen light. This approach created a balance between gallery-like display and homely intimacy.

3. How did the transformation into a gallery changed your relationship with the room? Before the transformation, it was a space I mostly ignored after the TV broke. It was once where I spent evenings watching MTV, Discovery, or HBO. Occasionally, I’d eat meals or nap on the couch there. By 2003–2004, the room had become a passage to the balcony, overshadowed by other parts of the house. Once it became a gallery, the room became my workspace. Preparing for an exhibition took about two weeks, during which I worked late nights, repainting walls and arranging displays.

4. How did your family use the room after it became a gallery? The room retained its functionality as a living space between exhibitions, as these events occurred only once a month and lasted 2–3 hours. My sister and her boyfriend sometimes used it to talk, and my mother would sit on the sofa with the cat after hanging laundry on the balcony. The clean, bright space became inviting again. The exhibitions also became a source of entertainment for my family, who enjoyed observing the exhibits, even if contemporary art wasn’t their preference.

5. How did an opening take place? We would start around 8:00 PM, for example, and by 10:30 PM, everything would be over. We waited for everyone to arrive, then I would give a brief ten-minute presentation about the works and the artist, followed by the distribution. Each guest received a folded slip of paper with a number inside. Typically, there were series of ten objects, meaning if you had a number between 1 and 10, you were a winner. About half an hour after the works were distributed, most guests would head home. The kitchen, the balcony overlooking the park, my room, and the bathrooms were accessible, but my mother’s and sister’s rooms remained closed to avoid disturbing them. By the end of the exhibitions, it was rare for many people to stay behind for extended discussions.

6. How did the audience interact with the rest of the apartment? Exhibition spaces have a peculiar quality—they radiate a certain fascination from the focal point, which is usually the artworks on display, outward to the surrounding space. In my house, the living room was aesthetically and visually the “correct” place for an exhibition. The rest of the house felt like a strange extension of that space. Somehow, the entire house became part of the fact that an exhibition was happening there, and for me at least, the aesthetic experience extended into parts of the house that I would typically consider ordinary. I think the audience interacted with the rest of the apartment as they would with any other private space when visiting someone’s home. My mother’s room, where she watched TV during the opening, held a certain fascination for some visitors—curious people would ask, “And what does she think about all this? ”My room was another point of interest, as friends and close acquaintances often retreated there. Occasionally, other guests, intrigued by the „living space” of someone who introduced themselves as an “artist” or “curator,” wanted to see it too. It was clear that my everyday intimate space sparked their curiosity. However, many people gravitated toward the kitchen, where various groups and subgroups would gather. The balcony, though, was the most frequented spot. Accessible directly from the living room, it was a space where people could smoke, view the exhibition inside, or simply stand and gaze at the electric lights in the park or the water in the lake surrounded by greenery.

7. How did people get invited to the openings? I didn’t select the audience. Each exhibition was announced on feeder.ro, a popular cultural event website in Bucharest. I offered ten invitations and limited attendance to 20–30 people due to space constraints. Generally, five or six people RSVP’d and brought friends. Artists also invited guests, and some uninvited visitors found their way through word-of-mouth.

8. What meant for the audience to receive the exhibited works for free? I think everything started with finding the address—I live on the outskirts of the city, in an apartment block in the Pantelimon neighborhood. Then they would enter a home they didn’t know, a space that looked like a gallery. They would look at the objects, followed by the presentation and distribution, and, if they were lucky, they’d leave with one of the works. The gifting of artworks was central to the project. It encouraged direct engagement with contemporary art and made the experience more accessible and meaningful. Visitors often left delighted with their pieces, making the interaction rewarding for both them and the artists.

9. How did you choose the artists and how did they tackle with the space? I’ll start by speaking for myself—the first exhibition was my own. For me, it was important to give the works to someone, not just post images of them on a blog. It also involved a sacrifice—both financial and emotional—because I liked the objects I gave away. But only by gifting them to someone could they have a life of their own, rather than remaining lifeless things. The people who received them were genuinely happy to have won, and I think that kind of reaction is one of the fundamental reasons I started doing what I do. I believe the other artists felt similarly. For them, it was about the instant gratification they could experience when seeing people enjoy their works. On a naïve but essential level, I think every artist wants to see someone they don’t know appreciating something they’ve created, and this setup offered exactly that. I chose the artists based on the quality of their works. Usually, after they agreed to participate, we would have a discussion in which they adapted, if necessary, to the specifics of the space. I wouldn’t say the space dictated the type of works exhibited. Rather, the idea of distribution deterred one or two interested individuals. The space didn’t dictate the type of works displayed, though some artists declined participation due to the distribution model. For others, the intimate and immediate feedback from the audience was deeply gratifying. For me, giving away my works added emotional and financial sacrifice but ensured the objects lived beyond their creation.

10. How did the private-public boundary manifest in this space? From my perspective, the gallery was never truly public. Visitors entered as guests in my private home. I controlled every aspect of the events, from greeting attendees to managing logistics. The temporary nature of the exhibitions, lasting only a few hours, prevented any permanent disruption of my privacy.

11. What were the challenges of turning your private space into a gallery? The primary challenge was balancing intimacy with accessibility. I didn’t share the gallery’s address publicly to avoid opening the space to unknown visitors. The ephemeral nature of the exhibitions helped preserve my privacy, making the temporary invasion manageable rather than overwhelming.