EUROPALIA Curator's Award HIT, EUROPALIA ROMANIA

CLAUDIA RADULESCU AND ELS VERMANG DISCUSS THEIR PROJECT, HIT

HIT is the fruit of a collaboration between curator and artist Els Vermang and artist Claudia Radulescu, the recipients of the third EUROPALIA CURATOR’S AWARD. Their award-winning project consists of the musical composition IMPOSTURE and the installation MPSTR: a fusion of music, plastic arts and pop culture.

How did this singular collaboration start?

Els: Last summer, Claudia told me about the music project she was working on. On my side, I could see a variety of ways in which I could project my own work into her music. And so it was that we decided together to submit our candidacy to the EUROPALIA CURATOR’S AWARD, and we were selected by the jury.

And how did the idea of making a song come about?

Claudia: The moment when one really wants to write and sing a song is linked with key moments in our lives. Beyond that it’s just a matter of transposing and transmitting that instant, which listeners will recognize in the lyrics. What is distinctive about sound, besides the orality of a song, is that it has the power to heal, and that, too, was a big part of my research for this project.

Els: As a curator, I think it’s interesting to use the immateriality of music as a medium. That’s quite pertinent to conceptual art, which tends to reduce the ‘object’ for the benefit of the ‘concept’. Today, digital media offer more options than analogue media, both in terms of composition and dissemination. HIT integrates these new possibilities by using remixes and Instagram posts, which are themselves integral to the project.

Still from the videoclip

Claudia Radulescu

Your artistic trajectories are very different. How does that figure into your collaboration?

Claudia: Artistic disciplines all speak the same language, the language of expressionism, stratification and construction. For me, working on a musical composition is like sculpting or painting. The real surprise was the collaboration with Els.

FOR ME, WORKING ON A MUSICAL COMPOSITION IS LIKE SCULPTING OR PAINTING.

Els: Claudia approaches things from a social perspective, while I tend to think in terms of processes instead. The confrontation of these two methods forced us to enlarge our horizons. But we just decided to trust each other.

Claudia Radulescu and Els Vermang

Aline Peeters

What are your hotspots in Romania?

Claudia: The Tamango family garden (Valea Plopilor) and the Control Club (Bucharest).

Els: I was very impressed with Salonul de Proiecte, a contemporary art space in Bucharest. I also thought Artichoke was great: a beautiful location—both inside and out—and a top-notch selection of art magazines.

What’s a must-see for you during EUROPALIA ROMANIA?

Claudia: Ion Grigorescu: Cinema at KIOSK; Dacia Felix at the Gallo-Romeins Museum in Tongeren; and, of course, Brancusi at BOZAR. In terms of music, I’d say: Karpov Not Kasparov at the Ancienne Belgique, WORM, De Centrale and Lille.

Els: Displacement and Togetherness at CC Strombeek, and Angela Gheorghiu and Alexandra Dariescu at BOZAR.