During our studies, travels and working all over the art system, Kooness team interviewed the two pillars of SUPRAINFINIT gallery in Bucharest, Cristina and Suzana Vasilescu, founder and curator of this young, vivid and interesting reality that deals with artists from Romania, their Country.
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When SUPRAINFINIT was born few years ago, in 2015, you have already developed various artistic projects, performances and events. When did you decide to have a permanent venue? And why you felt this need?
When I opened the gallery in 2015 in Bucharest, I was actually in Timisoara doing the first edition of the well known now Art Encounters Biennale. This event was also a milestone for the art scene in Romania. So, at that point, I decided to open my own space as I had an important background in the Romanian art scene, and the decision with the gallery came organically after all the projects I developed independently as well as working for other galleries. Regarding Suprainfinit, I wanted to be more involved in the everyday process of running a gallery alongside setting a long-term strategy. I already had a list of artists in mind, some of them are still represented by the gallery today, and some of them are not. Things evolved naturally and there is so much I have learnt and realized during these four years.
The name SUPRAINFINIT was taken from a concept of the energetic collective Apparatus 22 (Erika Olea, Maria Farcas, Dragos Olea), right? Since when you have been worked together?
Yes, SUPRAINFINIT heralds the name of a plural and utopian universe created by artist collective Apparatus 22. Not only had they created the name, but also a poem that depicts this universe which later on got transformed into a sound work. We have started working together since the creation of the gallery, 2015, and prior to that in other artistic contexts too.
Next year you are going to celebrate 5 years. For a gallery path five years still represent a young reality, but you already have been developed many projects, in a city as Bucharest, where there is – I suppose – lot to do and experiment around Contemporary art. Do you consider your gallery project still young?
Five years may seem like a solid timeframe, and yet there is never enough time to experiment and test ideas out. Highly important to mention is that, considering the contemporary art context of Bucharest, the galleries, as well as the independent art spaces, do or need to do the work of public art institutions but with less infrastructures and resources, so it is challenging, exciting and difficult at once.
As for our gallery, we try to support artists and productions as much as possible, young, mid-career but also more established artistic practices. We did exhibitions with seminal Romanian artists, such as Florin Mitroi or Andrei Chintila, as well as with younger generations of artists both Romanian and international. As we have recently expanded the gallery programme with two peculiar ‘non-places’ in the gallery space, we can totally consider that the gallery project is still young. We seek to maintain a fresh, relevant and curious curatorial engagement.
How was, at the beginning, the response to Romanian artists in the International art fairs? From 2015 until today did you see some changes?
Yes, totally, I see an improvement every year. Although I was used to the good feedback for the Romanian artists due to the previous gallery I was working for, they had a strong Romanian programme despite their base in Los Angeles. So I roughly knew the vibe around the Romanian artists in the art fairs, but of course there were a lot more other artists to show and this is what I did. Every art fair is different and we try to anticipate the directions and show the artists we think they fit the best in that particular context. Yet, it is like a lottery and you can never anticipate what will happen. We had amazing fairs and fairs that didn’t go that well, however, all experiences were good for the gallery track, visibility and institutional contacts. But of course, after 3 years of art fairs, people have started to be more aware of our programme. We are in contact with international collectors and magazines, so on the long run I think it’s a good strategy to participate at fairs, yet not rely on that only. There is life after the fairs, a consolidated gallery programme is crucial and these two, in my view, are sometimes more important.
