One of the purposes of this Artsens issue is to explain what is going on with the art of the future. In addition to everything you will find in the following pages, let me tell you something else: the art of the future is, to some extent, the art of the past. And what better way to document the art of the past than through books, friends who will stay with us for years and leave their mark on the art of the future? The following is a short presentation of the art books that have been or will be launched during this year’s Biennial.
On October 3, shortly after the start of the Biennial, the launch of the Our Other Us catalogue took place online. A bilingual edition, it contains information about the artists and their works, a few words from the curators and sponsors and details about mediation programmes.
Towards the end of the previous month, on 22 October, the first BETA (Timișoara Architecture Biennial) catalogue was launched. Also in bilingual format, it provides details about the 2020 edition that focused on responsibility, the events that were organised under it, the projects of the Enough IS Enough exhibition, the winners of the Beta Exhibition-Competition, as well as texts written by collaborators. The catalogue is also available online.
Esthétiques de la rencontre. L’énigme de l’art contemporain (The Aesthetics of Encounters. The Enigma of Contemporary Art), by Baptiste Morizot and Estelle Zhong Mengual was launched on October 28. The book was translated from French into Romanian by Bogdan Ghiu. This is the first book in the new collection of critical texts published by Contrasens. If you want to know more about The Aesthetics of Encounter and the translator, you can read the interview with Bogdan Ghiu, conducted by Andreea Neag.
As for the launches of the future, at this moment we have to wait for another such event. Entitled AFTERWORD. The Secret Life of Books and supported by the Institute of the Present, the event aims to launch books by artists from Timișoara: the Constantin Flondor Catalogue (2021), the publication of the 24 arguments exhibition (2020) and Diet Sayler’s book For a Random Structuring of Space, 2019, edition within the Parkour series. The event starts at 6 p.m.
This is how the saga of editorial events taking place during this year’s Art Encounters Biennial ends. Many artists of many fields have led our way to and through Our Other Us, and perhaps also to a better understanding of contemporary art. And many books for many types of audience will pass the test of time and stay with us, allowing a tiny piece of the art of the past to survive in the art of the future.
