At the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, you can visit the installation Black Cloud, signed by the Mexican artist Carlos Amorales. The “Black Cloud” installation is a satellite of the Biennale Art Encounters 2023 – “My Rhino is not a Myth: art science fictions”, which took place in Timișoara between May 19 and July 16, 2023.
In 1515, Albrecht Dürer created his famous Rhinoceros in response to a strange encounter: the first rhinoceros from Antiquity to travel to the European continent. But Dürer had never seen the depicted animal. Ganda, by his Gujarati name, drowned before reaching his destination.
His journey around the world mapped a geopolitical trajectory and reminded us that lesser-known stories of exploitation and violence eclipsed histories of exploration and discovery. Interacting with other works of fiction, such as Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist play Rhinoceros, the biennale traces the stories inspired by Ganda, reclaiming the creative space of science and art in a confused world marked by environmental and societal transformations.
Image credit: Serioja Bocsok, MNAC
The Black Cloud of Carlos Amorales has been haunting our planet since 2007, not only in art spaces but beyond them. The art installation was seen in an adapted version in private homes, fashion stores, and brands, and even on human skin.
Black Cloud originated in dreamlike images of vaulted spaces filled with swarms of butterflies and motivated its materialization in paper and installation, first occupying the entire artist’s studio.
From this moment, the work was packaged and sent to be displayed in an art gallery, then in the context of an art fair, a museum, a collector’s home, and finally, a former church. The work was installed entirely using the rooms, both in public and private space, without making distinctions, adjusting to the architectural conditions, as in the Marble Hall in the former House of the People, the headquarters of an oppressive regime.
Image credit: Serioja Bocsok, MNAC
The Black Cloud is not merely the materialization of a dreamed phantasm and a globe-spanning myth, such as the story of Ganda and Dürer’s depiction. As a satellite of the Art Encounters Biennale in Timișoara, where the Black Cloud occupied a tram that ran through the city, it is also a sublime manifestation of monstrosities.
Beyond what humans can comprehend, through our senses and sciences, is precisely this haunting dimension—within which art becomes a frighteningly real fiction.” (curated text)
The artistic installation can be viewed on the museum’s ground floor, in the Marble Hall, until October 1, 2023.
Courtesy of Estudio Amorales and kurimanzutto.
The curatorial team: Cristina Bută, Monica Dănilă, Edith Lázár, Ann Mbuti, Adrian Notz, Cristina Stoenescu, Georgia Țidorescu
Production and installation team: Raluca Durbacă (Production Manager); Janet Martínez (Installation Coordinator); Andra-Diana Dascălu (Production Assistant); Lena Ciobanu, Adnana Greșita, Andreea Irimia, Petra Maria, Diana Oană, Adriana Preda, A. Speianu, Toma Ștefănescu, Georgia Țidorescu, Alexandru Ungureanu, Maria Alexandra Vasile, Vlada Zagnat; Nicoleta Coman, Diana Mealha (MNAC)
Organizer: Art Encounters Foundation
Strategic partners: National Museum of Contemporary Art – MNAC, ETH AI Center
Primary sponsor: Raiffeisen Bank Romania
Leading financier: Timișoara Municipality through the Project Center
Funders: Ministry of Culture, Administration of the National Cultural Fund
With the support of ISHO, Tazz, Mewi, Daco Art
Image credit: Serioja Bocsok, MNAC
Source: mnac.ro
