Exhibition explores the place of jazz in pre-1990 Bucharest

The multimedia exhibition Aici Se Vede Jazz (Here You Can See Jazz), set to open at SAC Berthelot in Bucharest, explores how jazz found its way in the pre-1990 Bucharest and “the contemporary ways to listen, visualize, perform and relate artistically to its world of sounds and ideas.”

Bucharest had improvised studios, rehearsals with the lights turned off, and listeners “that understood instinctively that freedom circulates on different rhythms than the allowed ones,” a presentation of the show explains. The exhibition, presented by Arhiva de Sunet, looks at how jazz “negotiated order, time, and body in a control-based society and the way this memory can be reactivated today.”

The show gathers works by 111invers1, Apparatus 22, Justin Baroncea & Cristian Matei, Ion Bârlădeanu, Răzvan Botiș, Gigi Căciuleanu, Claudiu Cobilanschi, Nicolae Comănescu, Iulian Cristea, Roberta Curcă, Andrei Dinescu, Cosmin Frunteș, Dimitrie Luca Gora, Dumitru Gorzo, Iosif Kiraly, NOIMA, Oana Maria Pop, Miriam Răducanu, and Ramon Sadîc.

The works “activate the concerns for and the relationship between memory, time, rhythm, gesture, sound experiment, and their perception and representation.” From urban routes to polyphonic structures and interventions of invited artists, the show is meant to be a visual jam session.

The exhibition, curated by Alex Radu, Paul Breazu, and Mihai Lukács, is open from December 14 to January 24.

(Photo: Arhiva de jazz Brașov @Orsolya Balint, courtesy of the organizers)