This series documents one of the oldest historical spots in Bucharest essential for the Romanian cultural patrimony and history: Coșbuc Flower-Market on Calea Rahovei Street. I am focusing specifically on male flower sellers as their macho look contrasts with the sensitive craft of floristry. Even though they are showing off a blustering bravado, becoming friends with them I discovered under this manly harness, emotions resonating with the bouquets sold. This documentary highlights the complexity of human kind and the redundancy of gender norms.

Even though the project started as an inquiry of masculinity from a feminine perspective, the fact that all the flower sellers are of Roma ethnicity should not be overlooked. Media and newspapers spread the fear about Roma people. This project is done as a pursuit of trying to overcome and question these stereotypes too.

First encounter with the flower sellers men in the market was marked by catcalling comments, a thing that is not Roma specific. Instead of passing by quickly ignoring and validating this overly masculine behavior, I used my camera as a dialogue mechanism, I wanted to take a portrait trough my feminine perspective. On the one hand to reclaim my power regarding gender differences and on the other, to question this fear that must be coming from a substrate of racism and thus it’s an excuse for inequalities between the Roma minority and Romanian majority of people.

I believe that fear produces more fear and a vicious circle is created. What if all that manly bravado comes from a layer of insecurity? Norms imposed by society where power is always praised. What if the jokes and loudly fooling around of Roma men I encountered are a product of the fear they have of white people? An ancestral fear as a result of centuries of rights deprivation, a topic that is too little discussed or acknowledged but covered up by inversed guilt trough fear spreading media.

Besides being a documentary about toxic masculinity and male mental health that encourages soft emotions associated with feminine behavior not to be repressed by men, recently this landmark place owned by Roma people in Bucharest has been evacuated by the police due to political interests taking advantage of the pandemic time when people’s attention was distracted. I associate this banning of the market’s authenticity with the social pressure of conforming to stereotypes and not being oneself.

Limited edition of 25 copies.

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Dear friends,

We are very excited to participate to the very first edition of Giselle Salon in Marseille!

Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th of December
from 12 to 8pm

If you happen to be in Marseille please don’t lose the opportunity to partecipate to the event too! It will be an occasion to discover various practices, each representing their own approach to knowledge transmission through publishing and distribution.

Dear friends,
We are pleased to invite you to

Book presentation

1 December 2021
from 7pm

Van Gogh TV’s »Piazza Virtuale«
The Invention of Social Media at documenta IX in 1992

@ Motto Berlin

In presence of the members of Van Gogh TV and author Tilman Baumgärtel

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Piazza Virtuale by the group of artists known as Van Gogh TV was not only the biggest art project ever to appear on television, but from a contemporary point of view the project was also a forerunner of today’s social media. The ground-breaking event that took place during the 100 days of documenta IX in 1992 was an early experiment with entirely user-created content. This is the first book-length study of this largely forgotten experiment: It documents the radicality of Piazza Virtuale’s approach, the novel programme ideas and the technical innovations. It also allows, via QR codes, direct access to videos from the show, which until now have been inaccessible.

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Ongoing Exhibition till Sunday 5th of December 2021

VAN GOGH TV PIAZZA VIRTUALE
Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien
Kottbusser Straße 10
10999 Berlin
Free entry
Daily 2 – 7pm
 (Tuesday till Sunday)

Chile Project is a publication composed by a black envelope containing loose sheets with intervened reproductions of documents declassified by the CIA during the year 2000 in relation to the US intervention in support of Pinochet’s coup d’état.

The author in this case does not try to unveil what has been crossed out, he intensifies or exacerbates that censorship instead and therefore makes the level of silencing implied by this declassification more obvious and absurd, exposing the machinery of the bureaucratic and impersonal language behind this terrible historical facts.

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Dedication:
During his brief editorship of Impulse magazine, Peter Day inspired us with his activism and advocacy for contemporary art. Peter died on May 29, 1990, just before this issue was to go to press. He wrote the dedication that follows:

He wrote under variants of his forename: Shaunt Basmajian. Shant Basmajian. Sha(u)nt Basmajian. He died on January 25, 1990, aged thirty-nine, and this publication of one word works is dedicated to him.

He had promised to contribute to it, but never had time to submit a piece. In his self-effacing and humble way he would have apologized profusely for this.

Our personal acquaintanceship was short. We had talked on the telephone a couple of times and met twice. He was modest about his own work, overly so, and surprised that others were interested in it.

The last time we met he gave me a book, not one of his, but a collection of works by Marlene Mountain. It was inscribed: “To Brian from Marlene”. He said I should have it.

Sha(u)nt had been given the collection by his colleague Brian David J(o(h)n)ston. Her work was unknown to me. It was Pissed Off Poems and Cross Words (1986). She was a great poet, Shaunt said, someone overlooked and neglected. May day, 1990. l Peter Day

Introduction:
It has been a year since our last issue – and for us, like much of the world, it was a year of dramatic transitions and new beginnings.

Here, briefly, is the story: Last winter, after 15 years as the Executive Editor of Impulse, Eldon Garnet transferred his duties to Peter Day. Peter began selecting One Word Works from the many artists, writers, musicians and photographers featured in this special issue. His untimely death, in the midst of production several months later, threw the magazine into grief, shock and disarray. After much dedicated effort by long-time editors Brian Boigon, Judith Doyle and Carolyn White, the issue was recovered, bit by bit.

I accepted the Executive Editorship late last Fall. There was no question that Impulse would resume its publication with Peter’s One Word Works. It is presented not only with some pride, as a testimony to his vision and talent, but also as a reminder of the magazine’s resilience and collaborative nature.

During its 20 years of publication, Impulse has always stood for creativity and change – and this commitment will continue. To mark this new phase of revitalization and renewal, Associate Editor Gordon Lebredt and I have decided to rename the magazine. Beginning with our next issue, Impulse becomes M5V Magazine. Look for it in September.

–David Clarkson

Condition note: the cover might be in worn conditions due to its long-term storage

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The Propeller Group—an artist team made up of Phunam, Matt Lucero, and Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam—blurs the boundaries between fine art and media production, in much the same way that this publication blurs the boundaries between a traditional exhibition catalogue and an artist book. The catalogue features expository essays by curators Naomi Beckwith and Cesar Garcia, as well as contributions by each of the members of The Propeller Group: Tuan pens an obituary for the group that pays homage to Vietnamese funereal celebrations, Phunam shares an astrological reading that similarly honors the cultural legacy of Vietnam, and Lucero creates a travelogue that records the group’s recent exploration of the natural beauty of Papua New Guinea.

This is the first scholarly treatment on The Propeller Group, published on the occasion of the group’s exhibition at the MCA. The exhibition presents a number of multipart projects, comprised of videos and related objects, from the past five years for the first time since the group was formed in 2006.

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John Bock’s latest artist’s book combines over 150 video stills from his film “Skipholt” shot 2005 in Iceland, each with a corresponding drawing. Structured like a logbook of an expedition, it traces the path of the protagonist played by the artist himself, who embarks on a journey across the sea, volcanic plains and glaciers. The drawings read like notations of a journey, sometimes picture, sometimes diagram, peppered with word creations or theoretical explanations that reflect John Bock’s thought bubble and reveal the conjured para zone to the reader. The book is at the same time an art object, packed in a corduroy bag, filled with ‘KleinodtodSods’ – useful everyday objects such as Q-tips, thread and safety pin – and equipped with the practical belt pouch, so that nothing stands in the way of one’s own expedition.

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