Tilla Rudel, the director of the French Institute Timișoara since 2020, made a valuable contribution in organizing the two landmark exhibitions dedicated to the artists Victor Brauner and Constantin Brâncuși, events organized this year in the context of the celebration of the prestigious title of European Capital of Culture in the year 2023. Tilla Rudel organized the Night of Philosophy for the first time in Romania, a large-scale event that enjoyed international success in Paris, London, Berlin, and New York.
The interview reveals the stages of coagulation of the two exhibitions, beyond the effort and sacrifices involved in preparing events of such magnitude, but also the cultural program of the French Institute in Timișoara.

Angela Izvercian: The French Institute Timișoara has an effervescent cultural program which complements the events dedicated to Timișoara, the European Capital of Culture, such as The Philosophy Night, French Film Festival, French National Day, Comedy Film Days and the IMPULS street performing arts festival. Moreover, you co-organized a series of memorable exhibitions dedicated to great artists such as Victor Brauner and Constantin Brâncuși. How would you describe the whole experience?

Tilla Rudel: Indeed, France was and is the first European partner of Timișoara European Capital of Culture program, starting with the two major exhibitions that opened and will close the cultural program, Victor Brauner and Brâncuși. Beyond the fact that they were the highlights of events that attracted dozens of thousands of visitors, the Timișoara Museum of Art will remain a museum with international standard requirements that can host international exhibitions. This is a very important legacy of Timișoara European Capital of Culture and the huge financial investment made by the Timiș County in the museum’s infrastructure.

Besides these two exhibitions, we were also involved in the Centre for Projects cultural program through the Impuls Festival, which took part in the Fabric neighborhood, with many outdoor events like the circus, dance, street theater and music. We also initiated a new German Theatre creation with the dramaturg and director Pascal Rambert. We also participated in several festivals with financial support, like the Garana Jazz Festival, Jazz X Festival, Ceau Cinema Festival, Harababura Vintage Fair… and many others during this fabulous cultural year.

A.I.: On your initiative, this year, for the first time in Romania, the Night of Philosophy, a large-scale event that enjoyed enormous international success, was organized. What challenges did this project come with?

T.R.: This year, we had the Night of Philosophy for the third time. This event gets more and more audiences every year, and we have new partners each year. Thanks to the European Capital of Culture, this 2023 edition was more European, and we organized the event together with HEI (House of European Institutes), a cluster of EUNIC that operated and organized many European cultural events during the year. We have invited philosophers from France, of course, but also from several European countries.
The main challenge in organizing such an event this year was the challenge of a double event! One Night of Philosophy in Bucharest, and the next day we all traveled together from Bucharest to Timișoara and performed the second Night in more than one venue! Indeed, the Night of Philosophy is not a static event! People go from one place to another and listen to more than one conference. Our partners are usually La Două Bufnițe bookshop, Art Encounters Foundation, Art Museum, Faculty of Art and Design -UVT and Casa Artelor.

A.I.: Together with the City Hall of Timișoara and the associations Marele Ecran, Pelicula Culturală, DocuMentor, and Timishort, the French Institute in Timișoara has made a significant contribution to the renovation process of the Cinema Studio. Please tell us about this effort to create the only art cinema in town. Is the public ready for such a project?

T.R.: I could not tell today! Indeed, together with other cinema associations, we contributed to renovating the Cinema Studio by supporting the architectural study of this highly ambitious project. Unfortunately, this project could not be ready in 2023 as planned. In the meantime, two other cinemas, which are part of the bigger plan of the City Hall to renovate five cinemas, were opened in different neighborhoods in the city, Cinema Victoria in the Bălcescu area and Cinema Timiș in the center. Both of them have found their audience thanks to a very good editorial choice of films, so I can only hope that Cinema Studio will also find its specific audience when it is ready to open. I think that after such a rich cultural year, I do not doubt that people will go more to see the kind of movies that will be screened in Cinema Studio, which will also offer a lot of activities connected to film production like workshops, conferences, talks and, of course, a bar and music events.

A.I.: Another notable initiative supported by the French Institute in Timișoara was the exhibition “Victor Brauner: Inventions and Magic”, an initiative to recover Victor Brauner’s work in Romanian space. What did the organization of the exhibition mean?

T.R.: When I arrived in Timișoara in September 2020, one of the first persons I met was Ovidiu Sandor, who is, in my view, the best cultural “Ambassador” of Timișoara and the best connoisseur of Romanian contemporary art. I already knew he created an international top-level event with the Art Encounters Biennale and organized a Brâncuși exhibition at Europalia in Brussels, which I saw in 2018. He told me that he is preparing a Brâncuși exhibition for Timișoara in 2023 (at that time, we did not really know if the cultural year would move to 2022 or 2023 because it was pandemic time). In that first meeting, I told him that I just saw in Paris a beautiful retrospective of Victor Brauner at Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and that it would be very interesting to start the European Capital of Culture program with an exhibition of this Romanian French artist who, as Brâncuși, was born in Romania and lived in France and is much less known than Brâncuși but as important among the international artists of the 20th Century.

He immediately agreed and accepted to be part of this “Adventure”! We started a very deep and intense collaboration and cooperation with the Art Museum of Timișoara and international institutions, mainly with the Centre Pompidou, which owns most of Victor Brauner’s important works. The curator of the exhibition was the co-curator of the Parisian exhibition of Victor Brauner, Camille Morando, and she is also a current curator at the Centre Pompidou, which made things easier. To answer your question, what does this organization mean? I would answer: a lot of work, a lot of patience, a lot of resilience toward a lot of bureaucratic complexity …, and a lot of diplomacy in discussions and negotiations with all the institutions, but in the end, the result is so great and magical that it is worth any minute spent!

A.I.: You continued the series of exceptional events that took place in Timișoara with “Brâncuși: Romanian sources and universal perspectives,” the French Institute in Timișoara, being one of the event’s co-organizers. Beyond the effort and sacrifices involved in organization events of this magnitude, we are interested in knowing the stages of preparing the exhibition. Can you please outline what such an endeavor involves?

T.R.: We worked together with all the partners of both Brauner and Brâncuși projects, Timișoara Art Museum, with director Filip Petcu and his team, the Art Encounters team, the Centre Pompidou Museum and with the great curator Doina Lemny, one of the best specialists of Brâncuși who was the director of the Brâncuși Atelier next to the Centre Pompidou, the Timiș County team (the Timiș County finances the museum), and us, the French Institute. It was the same institutions involved with the Brauner exhibition, but with Brancusi, the scale was much bigger in terms of costs and logistics, and since the opening of the Brancusi exhibition, we can see that also in terms of audience, it is something that Timișoara never experienced before. There are thousands of visitors weekly, and the tickets are mostly sold out daily.

The main role of the French Institute in this exhibition was, besides facilitating the exchanges with the Centre Pompidou, the cultural mediation for the school children. Indeed, we are in charge of organizing the children’s visits with their teachers, and we have to organize the ticketing for all the visits. It means a very important logistic organization. Our team also provides workshops with the children of primary schools during the visits.

A.I.: The artistic world is definitely paying attention to the cultural events in Timișoara in this unrepeatable year. What is the public response to the cultural events in Timișoara?

T.R.: You have the answer when you look at the figures with the number of visitors to these two exhibitions and the number of children from local schools! The public response is enthusiastic! Not only to the exhibitions but also to the concerts and other festivals we could attend all year.

A.I.: 2023 is undoubtedly an effervescent cultural year for Timișoara. What do you think the year 2024 will look like for the city?

T.R.: I can only guess that 2024 will be closer to 2023 than 2023 was to 2022 in terms of cultural events offered! The richness of the cultural proposal was so intense in 2023 that the public got used to having events every day but could not attend all the events… which created some frustration! Next year, we will have fewer events, but we will still have more than before the Capital of Culture, and we will not be frustrated by missing events that are taking place simultaneously! And I am convinced that the cultural life in Timișoara will be of a very high quality now.

A.I.: What drives you in your professional life? Is there something you would like to explore, but the proper context has yet to come?

T.R.: I was always very curious in my life, and I always loved to experience new places and jobs, and meet new people, but always in the cultural field. I have worked in publishing, cinema, theater, and cultural diplomacy for the last ten years and enjoyed every minute of my professional career! I am afraid only of one thing: to be bored! Of course, it never happened to me … one could describe me as a “hyperactive” person, but I am happy with it as long as it is connected to culture, art, and creativity …

The interview is part of the project REPERE, an approach through which I aim to present outstanding people, with a beautiful and healthy professional career, with inspirational stories, people who have transformed Timișoara into an effervescent cultural city through numerous exceptional events initiated and coordinated over time, but also on the occasion of the celebration of holding the title of European Capital of Culture.

This journalistic material was made through the financing program Energie! Burse de creație, supported by the Municipality of Timișoara through the Center for Projects, within the Power Station component of the National Cultural Program “Timișoara – European Capital of Culture in the Year 2023”. The material does not necessarily represent the position of the Center for Projects of the Municipality of Timișoara, and this one is not responsible for its content or how it may be used.

Credit cover photo: Jonathan Sayeb

Courtesy of French Institute Timișoara.