NTB Conferences

Video-streaming   On Sunday, November 29th, 2009, at 11 o'clock, at the Black Box Hall, we invite you to the conference held by the art historian and critic Dorana Coşoveanu, entitled When the Paintings Were Shot.Art historian and critic, member of the Fine Artists’ Union, Dorana Coşoveanu is a permanent collaborator of several cultural radio and TV shows, initiator of modern fine art exhibitions, in the country and abroad.During the communist period, she had a complicated professional career, full of obstacles due to her father 's status as a political prisoner, Ion Coşoveanu, who spent 17 years in detention.Rejected by several faculties - Philology, Fine Arts, Drama - she finally managed to finish her studies at the Academy of Arts - Department of Art History and Theory (1966) and Fresco Restoration (1967). She then chose the position of museographer-researcher at the RSR Art Museum.From 1966 to December 1989, she was a curator, editor, museographer at the European Art Gallery of this museum. She published studies, catalogs, scientific communications, press articles, monographs, including: The Dutch Landscape in Seventeenth-Century Etching (1975, Meridiane Publishing), French Etching in the Seventeenth Century (1978, Meridiane Publishing), Octav Grigorescu (1985 , Meridiane Publishing), Sever Frenţiu (2000, Meridiane Publishing), Camilian Demetrescu (2000, Official Gazette), Cela Neamţu (2002, Official Gazette), Rodica Lazăr (2006, Humanitas), Iacob Lazăr (2006, Humanitas). The revolution of December '89 is the decisive event that turns the woman of study into a fighter for the defense of heritage, considering that it is not a "greater iniquity than trying to destroy and overthrow the scale of values ​​in the culture of a nation."In January 1990, the illustrious art historian Theodor Enerscu and the Deputy General Director, Dorana Coşoveanu, were appointed General Director of the National Museum of Art. The management of the two, beneficial for the museum, in the most difficult period of restoration and international establishment of the museum, was only four years (until 1994).From 1997 to 2000, Dorana Coşoveanu was a Ministerial Adviser at the Ministry of Culture.In the post-revolutionary years, she was active as a member of the Civic Alliance and a founding member of the Civic Academy Foundation, in which she collaborated on the museographic project of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and Resistance, in Sighet.In December '89, Dorana Coşoveanu, historian, art critic and museographer of the National Art Museum of Romania, was protecting and storing the most important works of the European Gallery (Rubens, El Greco, Memling, Van Eyck, etc.), before the nightly fire of the building started. Ensuring permanence in the museum, between December 21st-25th, she managed - together with some brave collaborators - to protect and store major works of art, during the "terrorist" deployments in the palace. Patricia Coste, editor at Antene II - Paris, broadcast some of these actions, generating the wave of sympathy and mutual aid of some great western museums. The revolution of December '89 is the decisive event that turns the woman of study into a fighter for the defense of heritage, considering that it is not a "greater iniquity than trying to destroy and overthrow the scale of values ​​in the culture of a nation."In January 1990, the illustrious art historian Theodor Enerscu and the Deputy General Director, Dorana Coşoveanu, were appointed General Director of the National Museum of Art. The management of the two, beneficial for the museum, in the most difficult period of restoration and international establishment of the museum, was only four years (until 1994).From 1997 to 2000, Dorana Coşoveanu was a Ministerial Adviser at the Ministry of Culture.In the post-revolutionary years, she was active as a member of the Civic Alliance and a founding member of the Civic Academy Foundation, in which she collaborated on the museographic project of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and Resistance, in Sighet.In December '89, Dorana Coşoveanu, historian, art critic and museographer of the National Art Museum of Romania, was protecting and storing the most important works of the European Gallery (Rubens, El Greco, Memling, Van Eyck, etc.), before the nightly fire of the building started. Ensuring permanence in the museum, between December 21st-25th, she managed - together with some brave collaborators - to protect and store major works of art, during the "terrorist" deployments in the palace. Patricia Coste, editor at Antene II - Paris, broadcast some of these actions, generating the wave of sympathy and mutual aid of some great western museums. During the conference, a film made by TVR on January 3rd, 1990 (editor Mihaela Creţulescu) will be screened, which presents the damage caused to works of art. "A day as a human being is better than a thousand days as a shadow," says a Chinese proverb. My revolution - because each of us believes he is the owner of one, strictly personal - made me feel truly human. That is why I cannot forget it and cannot help but love it. It persuaded me, once again, that the spirit is incapable of doing anything without the illusion of freedom. (Dorana Coşoveanu) Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

Video-streaming  On Sunday, March 27th, 2011, at 11.00 at the Black Box Hall, director Alexander Tocilescu presented the conference About Theatre and Its Matters. About the Conference Alexander Tocilescu does not fall short of his constant concern for investigating recent history. After successfully staging plays such as "A Day from the Life of Nicolae Ceausescu", "Elizaveta Bam", "Red Comedy" (within the NTB programme "The Trial of Communism through Theatre"), "Zoica’s House", the well-known director holds at the NTB Conferences a lecture entitled "About Theatre and Its Matters", on the ever-present topic of resistance through culture. ''The topic of the conference would be an attempt to clarify aspects of resistance through culture in the field of theatre: how and if this existed!'', declares the director who enacted in full censorship an extraordinary "Hamlet" in an anti-communist key. Recall that on March 27th, the World Theatre Day is celebrated symbolically - which lends Alexander Tocilescu’s conference a special significance. Translated by Simona Nichiteanu

Video-streaming On Sunday, 2 April 2017, 11.00, the NTB Small Hall shall host the conference Amusement and Banqueting in Phanariot Bucharest (18th-19th Centuries) held by Mrs. Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu. About the Conference „Phanariot Bucharest is still shrouded in mystery, built on legends and myths, often thrown to the bin of history as part of a „dark” period of the past. Travelling through the documents of the epoch, most of them unusual, I invite you to discover together the busybodies on the Bucharest alleys in a fascinating century, itself fascinated with Oriental civilisation. In goatskin shoes, with fine fabric attire and fur-lined short coat, we shall meander among cafes, pubs and benches, we shall rest on garden paths, sipping sorbet and coffee in the shadow of a gazebo, we shall serenade at the windows of damsels, we shall banquet at the tables of the aristocrats, bothered by the smoke of hookahs, for the morning to find us at Babicul’s furnace, waiting for the warm and fluffy white bread to come out.” Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu About Constanța Vintilă – Ghițulescu She holds a PhD in „History and Civilisation“ at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris (2004) and a PhD in Sociology at the Faculty of Sociology of the Bucharest University (2012). Researcher at the „Nicolae Iorga“ Historical Institute. She taught at the Faculty of Sociology, Faculty of Letters, Faculty of Political Sciences within the Bucharest University. Collaborator at the weekly cultural newspaper Dilema Veche. Writings: Eugenites, Upstarts, Churls. About the Faces of the First Romanian Modernity (1780-1860), Humanitas, 2013; In baggy trousers and with işlic. Church, sexuality, marriage and divorce in Wallachia in the 18th century, Humanitas, 2004, republished in 2011. The book received several prizes: Prometeus debut award of the România Literară magazine (2004), the Nicolae Bălcescu Award of the Romanian Academy, Prize of the National Foundation for Science and Art of the Romanian Academy (2005), Debut Award of the Romanian Writers’ Guild (2005). The book has been translated in Germany. Other writings: The Fire of Love: on Love and Sexuality in Romanian Society (1750–1830), Humanitas (2006), translated into German; The Eugenites, Humanitas (2006); Mode et luxe aux Portes de l’Orient. Tradition et modernité dans la société roumaine, Iniciativa Mercurio, Valadolid, 2011; From işlic to top hat: fashion and luxury at the gate of the Orient, Iniciativa Mercurio, Valadolid, 2011; From işlic to top hat: fashion and luxury at the gate of the Orient, Peter Pan, Bucharest, 2013 (with photos taken by Cătălin D. Constantin). Coordinator of the following volumes: Penser le XIXe siècle: nouveaux chantiers de recherche, with Silvia Marton, Iaşi, 2013; From Traditional Attire to Modern Dress: Modes of Identification, Modes of Recognition in the Balkans (XVIth-XXth Centuries), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011; Le corps et ses hypostases en Europe et dans la société roumaine du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine, alongside Alexandru-Florin Platon, NEC, 2010; Social Behaviour and Family Strategies in the Balkans (16th–20th Centuries)/ Comportements sociaux et stratégies familiales dans les Balkans (XVIe-XXe siècles) with Ionela Băluţă and Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu, NEC, 2008; The Public Performance between Tradition and Modernity: Celebrations, Ceremonies, Pilgrimages and Tortures (14th-19th Centuries), with Mária Pakucs Willcocks, Romanian Cultural Institute, 2007; Les bonnes et les mauvaises mœurs dans la société roumaine d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, EDR, NEC, Bucharest, 2005, with Ionela Băluţă. Manager of the European Project (ERC): Luxury, Fashion and Social Status in Early Modern South-Eastern Europe. Data gathered from humanitas.ro   Translated by Simona Nichiteanu

Video-streaming here On Sunday 22nd of March 2015, at 11.00 o'clock, in The Black Box Hall of TNB (The National Theatre of Bucharest), Alex. Ștefănescu will give a conference on the topic Who needs literature today? About the conference "I am often asked: who needs literature today? Here is my answer: we all need literature, but we don't know we need it. Hundreds of years ago, seamen sailing across seas and oceans for a long time got sick with a mysterious disease: they got spots on their face and on their legs, their gums bled, they became hideous. No one knew why. Many years later it was discovered that the disease - called scurvy - was caused by the lack of vitamin C in sailors' food (sailors used to eat, owing to the force of circumstances, biscuits, pastrami, but not fresh fruit and vegetables. We are in a similar situation. We grow uglier and uglier and we do not see why. People who read are beautiful. Of course, reading doesn't change facial features. The design of our physiognomy doesn't change. But the face of a cultivated man irradiates noble-mindedness, it is surrounded by some sort of a halo which is very easily seen." (Alex. Ștefănescu) Despre Alex. Ștefănescu Critic and literary historian, novelist, playwright, journalist, producer of TV shows. Born on 6 November 1947. Editor (since 1990) and chief-editor (during 1995-2010) of the Literary Romania (România Literară) magazine. Author of thousands of articles and of 24 books, among which The History of The Contemporary Romanian Literature was a great success. 1941-2000, published in 2005 (The Union of Writers Award, The Academy Award). The volumes Secret Diary - 2009and Male asleep in his armchair - 2010 went out of print in bookstores and were reprinted by popular demand. A cubic meter of culture Show, broadcasted by Reality TV (Realitatea TV) won him the APTR Award for talk-shows in 2004 and another show, made for TVR Cultural, The History of The Contemporary Romanian Literature retold by Alex. ȘtefĂnescu - won him The APTR Award for cultural programs in 2008. In 2009 he published a book about two hundred and fifty bad books, How you can fail as a writer. Also in 2009 he began to make The Pearly Hood, a TV show on the same topic. Between 2011-2013, this was followed by The Public Lighting Show, dedicated to valuable books published after 1989. Alex. Ștefănescu's latest books are Texts That Used To Nothing, A Writer, Two Writers and Message To the Youth. Rediscover Literature !, all published in 2014.   At the end of the conference, the writer will give autographs on his latest book, Message To the Youth. Rediscover Literature! Bucharest, Curtea Veche Publishing House, 2014 (second edition - 2015). Volume price - 20 lei . Photo credit : Eduard Enea   Translated by Aureliana Grama MTTLC, University of Bucharest

Video-streaming On Sunday, December 8th, 2019, from 11.00 am, the NTB Black Box Hall will host the conference Silvia Colfescu sharing stories with Anamaria Smigelschi: About the Romanian Bohemia of the ‘70s-‘80s. Reunion with the art of Ion Alin Gheorghiu and Vladimir Setran. About the conference After a first conference held at NTB in ​​2018, entitled Stories from Bucharest - a City with the Calling of Survival, writer and graphic artist Silvia Colfescu returns with a new conference, this time in the form of a dialogue with graphic artist Anamaria Smigelschi. You are invited to a discussion about the fascinating bohemia of the '70s-'80s, but also to a reunion with the fine art of Ion Alin Gheorghiu and Vladimir Setran, some of their paintings being permanently on display in the lobby of the Black Box Hall.       Silvia Colfescu is a graduate of the Faculty of Art History of the Institute of Fine Arts "Nicolae Grigorescu" (currently the National University of Arts). Co-founder of the Bucharest Weather magazine, she is a translator from French and English, illustrator, writer. Selective bibliography: 1982 - A Happy Family, Ion Creanga Publishing, Bucharest, republished in 1990, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest; 1985 - Dictionary of Romanian Language for Students, fine arts department, Didactic and Pedagogical Publishing House, republished in 1999 at Cartier Publishing, Bucharest; 2000 - Bucharest, historical, tourist, artistic guide, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest, republished in 12 updated editions; 2004 - Two months in Europe, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest; 2009 - Cats of Bucharest, Vremea Publishing, Buc .; 2013 - Fabulous Aunts and other Stories from Bucharest, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest.        Anamaria Smigelschi is the daughter of architect Victor Smigelschi, son of the Transylvanian painter of Polish origin Octavian Smigelschi, and Maria Anna Giuseppina Trinchieri, of Italian origin. She was married to painter Ion Alin Gheorghiu, who died in 2001. Fine artist - graphic artist, Anamaria Smigelschi has been distinguished throughout her career with numerous national and international awards; she created easel graphics, engraving, graphic design for illustrated magazines, television shows, advertising and poster graphics, book graphics. She is the author of eight children's books and has illustrated countless others. She has published at the Humanitas Publishing House the volumes of memoirs "Taste, Smell and Memory" (2013), "From Yore, from Afar" (2015) and at the Vremea Publishing House "Passersby Passersby" (2019).   Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

Video-streaming   Photo by Dinu Lazar On Sunday, 29th April 2018, from 11.00 a.m., in the NTB Black Box Hall, Mrs. Silvia Colfescu shall hold the conference on the topic Stories from Bucharest – a City with the Calling of Survival. About the Conference „From 1711 to 1916, Romania was invaded by the Russians ten times, and in the years 1940 and 1944 they added two further occupations to this list. As all invaders, also the great friends from the East have robbed the country, humiliated the inhabitants, regardless whether they were great aristocrats or simple peasants, they behaved as any winner in a defeated country. A consequence of the invasion from 1828-1829, during the Russian-Turkish War, has been however, to a certain extent, beneficial: the Russians have occupied the Principalities until the payment of the war damages by the Turks. The tzar has commissioned Count Pavel Kiseleff to lead both Principalities. The count has inaugurated an order and discipline regime and has issued the first Constitution of the country, the Organic Regulation. It was a period in which the Principalities have made big steps on the path of civilisation. The memory of the count is perpetuated by the Kiseleff Road, thus named in his honour. Kiseleff, a tamed invader, defeated by the discrete charm of the city. In the end, assimilated in a way. Assimilation – one of the survival methods of a city which, for centuries, has always been finding ways of survival. And flourishing. Because things, that do not grow, die out. And Bucharest, always hurt, often despised, untidy to a great extent, is alive.” Silvia Colfescu About Silvia Colfescu BA degree from the Faculty of Arts History, the Nicolae Grigorescu Institute of Fine Arts (nowadays National Art University Bucharest) Co-founder (1990) and editorial manager of „Vremea” Publishing, Bucharest Author and illustrator: children’s books, literature, travel book, tourist guides Translator for French-Romanian, English-Romanian Selective bibliography 1982 – A Happy Family, Ion Creangă Publishing, Bucharest, republished 1990, Vremea Publishing, text and illustrations 1985 – Romanian Dictionary for Pupils, fine arts department, Didactic and Paedagogic Publishing, republished 1999 Cartier Publishing, Bucharest 1988 – George Topârceanu – Autumn Rhapsodies, Junimea Publishing, Iași, illustrations 1991 – The Cherry Pie, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest, text and illustrations 1992 – The Most Beautiful Stories, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest, illustrations 2000 – Bucharest, Tourist, Artistic, Historical Guide, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 2004 – Two Months in Europe, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 2009 – Cats from Bucharest – Cats of Bucharest, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 2013 – Fabulous Aunts and Other Bucharest Short Stories, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest Translations from French 1992 – Georges Simenon –Maigret’s Revolver, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 1997 – Jacques Sadoul – Story of Modern SF, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 1998 – Charles Perrault – Fairy Tales, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest, reprinted 1999, 2000, 2001   2007 – Nicolas Werth – Cannibal Island, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 2011 – Antoine Vitkine – Mein Kampf. History of a Book, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 2013 – Erik Orsenna – On the Paper Road, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest Translations from English 1993 – H.P. Lovecraft – The Thing on the Doorstep, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 1993 – A.E. van Vogt – Dormant, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 1994 – A.E. van Vogt – Mission to the Stars, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 1995 – Ira Levin – This Perfect Day, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 2007 – T.J. Macgregor – Out of Sight, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest 2008 – James Hadley Chase – I’ll Get You For This, Vremea Publishing, Bucharest Graphics 1980-1990 – disk covers (design and illustration), Electrecord, Bucharest 1980 – 1990 – book covers (design and illustration), Medical Publishing, Ion Creangă Publishing etc. 1980-2004 – participations in collective exhibitions, painting and illustration   Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

Video-streaming On Sunday, 24 September 2017, from 11.00, in the Black Box Hall of NTB, Mr. Emil Brumaru shall hold the conference on the topic The Feminine Inferno and Brumaru’s Angels. About the Conference One of the major Romanian poets, Emil Brumaru, shall arrive precisely from Iași in order to tell the Bucharest spectators about a very special realm, essential place in the imaginary of his oeuvre, which he named „the nature reserve of angels”. For Brumaru, who often signed his letters with „The juggling angel Emil Brumaru“, the angelic has a sex and angels are, for the most part, beautiful women. Brumaru’s angels are sinning in an inferno of eroticism, making up one of the most original universes of Romanian poetry. About Emil Brumaru Emil Brumaru was born on 1st January 1939 in the parish Bahmutea (Mihailovca), Tighina county, Bessarabia (nowadays the Republic of Moldova). After studies at the Secondary School no. 1 „Mihail Sadoveanu" (the current National College) of Iaşi, he followed the courses of the Faculty of Medicine in the same town, graduating in 1963. In the time frame 1963–1975, he was a physician in the parish Dolhasca, Suceava county. He then dedicated himself to writing, in parallel with the activity as proofreader (1983–1989) and editor (1990–1996) at the Convorbiri literare magazine of Iaşi. He made his debut with poems in the Luceafărul magazine (1967), then editorial in 1970, with two poetry volumes, Verses (Writers’ Guild Award for debut) and Arthur the Detective. His poems were included in anthologies in Romania, Germany, France, England, Sweden, USA. In the time frame 1992–2009, he held a weekly column in România literară (The Coffee Beggar), having as well, over time, columns in Ziarul de Iaşi (Gulliver), Cronica, Plai cu boi, Suplimentul de cultură (God isGazing at us through Binoculars, The Civil Morning Dusk, Diablogs – together with Veronica D. Niculescu) etc. He was awarded numerous prizes, such as the „Mihai Eminescu" National Poetry Prize for Opera Omnia (2001) and the „Gheorghe Crăciun" award for Opera Omnia granted by the Cultural Observer magazine (2011). Writings (selections): Adieu, Robinson Crusoe (1978), The Enamoured Cupboard (1980), The Ruins of a Samovar (1983), From the Hollow of a Carrot (1998), Selected Poems. 1959–1998 (2003), Poetic Works (2003, 2005 – ed. revăzută şi adăugită), Pain d'Espagne Butterflies (2003), The Coffee Scrounger. Letters to Lucian Raicu (2004), The Infernal Comedy (2005), Erotic Submarine (2005), God isGazing at us through Binoculars (2006), An Adolescent's Songs (2007), Romanian Erotic Stories (collective volume, 2007), We Betroth Ourselves with this Ring of Grass (object-book, 2008), The Story of the Rural Petty Boyar and the Maiden... (2008, 2012 – extended edition), Works I. Julian the Hospitaller (2009), Works II. Erotic Submarine (2009), Works III. The Coffee Scrounger (2012), The Angel Reservation (2013).   Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

Video-streaming On Sunday, 31 January 2016, 11.00 a.m., the Black Box Hall of NTB shall host the conference with the topic Half a Century in the service of forensic medicine, held by Vladimir Beliș. About the conference Prof. Dr. Vladimir Beliş has dedicated half a century of life to forensic medicine, shaping at the same time, throughout an impressive university career, numerous generations of students. Within the framework of the NTB conference, Vladimir Beliș shall present the current stage of development of forensic medicine, the place occupied by this science among the medical specialties, its legal and social role. Director, for over a decade, of the „Mina Minovici” Institute for Forensic Medicine in Bucharest, Prof. Dr. Beliș shall also talk about his personal contribution to the modernisation of this institute. The conference illustration shall be provided by Univ. Prof. Dr. Octavian Buda. About Univ. Prof. Dr. Vladimir Beliș He was born on 01.05.1930. He graduated from the „Carol Davila” Medical Faculty in 1954. PhD in Medical Sciences in 1967. Teaching activity at the Forensic Medicine chair, U.M.F. “Carol Davila”, from 1959 to date. As of 1990 he has been holding the title of Professor. Forensic medicine courses: - At U.M.F. „Carol Davila”, 1968-2011. - At the Bucharest University — Criminal Law chair, 1989-2000. - At the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Police Academy, 1989-2005. Works: - Forensic Medicine Treatise, 2 vol., Medicaid Publishing House, 1995. Monographs: - Mechanical Traumatology in the Medico-Legal and Forensic Medicine, Academy Publishing House, 1985 - The Microscopic Investigation in Forensic Medicine, Academy Publishing House, 1993, „Victor Babeș” Award of the Romanian Academy, 1995 - Toxicological, Clinical Forensic Aspects in Ethylism, Medical Publishing House, 1998 - Forensic Practice Handbook, Medical Publishing House, 1991 - Guide of Forensic Emergencies, Scripta Publishing House, 1991 - Forensic Genetics, Medical Publishing House, 2007 - Half a Century in the Service of Forensic Medicine, Medical Publishing House, 2010. Over 185 theses published or communicated, as well as forensic medicine courses published at U.M.F. „Carol Davila” and at the Bucharest University — Faculty of Law.   Titles and Honours: - Director-General of the „Mina Minovici” National Institute of Forensic Medicine Bucharest (1989-2001). - President of the Romanian Society of Legal Medicine. - Full member of the Medical Science Academy since 1995. - Member of the International Academy of Forensic Medicine since 1973. - National Order of Merit to the rank of Senior Officer, awarded by the President of Romania (2000), for contributions to the elaboration of the organ transplant law. - Vice-President of the Bucharest Medical Council – coordinator of the Judicature Department — since 2004.   Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

Video - streaming On Sunday, 22 May 2016, as of 11.00 a.m., in the NTB Black Box Hall, Mr. Pavel Șușară shall hold the conference entitled - Constantin Brâncuși or about Sculpture with No History. About the conference No other personality of Romanian culture seems to have stirred the fascination and passion prompted in a relatively short time by Constantin Brâncuşi. Not even the human and cultural existence of Eminescu, by far the most significant in the interest of the Romanian audience in a time frame exceeding the strict limits of a century, in which a Romantic destiny overlaps, up to absorption, with the mythological amplitude and metaphysical effervescence of a quasi-legendary oeuvre, did not experience such an irrepressible and passionate calling towards knowledge. Because sculpture is, as an assumed cultural project, an exclusively Western artistic and symbolic product, until the mid-nineteenth century, the Romanian area did not know sculpture as a common exercise and as an appropriated practice. Without being situated in the direct filiation of a certain pattern, but also without reviving, through cultural quotation, any museified form, Brâncuşi suggests, in a perspective liberated both from the pragmatism of representation and from the bovarism of imaginary construction, the possibility of another reading of sculpture, much closer to a certain Elysian space, of primordial innocence. Pavel Șușară About Pavel Șușară - Romanian art critic and historian, monographer, poet, publicist and writer, art history researcher at the Art History Institute attached to the Romanian Academy - Born in 1953, Bănia town, Caraş-Severin County - Graduate of the ,,Nicolae Grigorescu’’ Fine Arts Institute (Fine Arts University) Bucharest, Faculty of Museology – Art History and Theory, 1977-1981 - Collaborations with studies and articles of fine arts, poetry, prose, essay, polemic and civic engagement with the magazines: Arta, old and new series, SCIA, Almanahul Arta, Artelier, Balkon, Almanahul literar, Luceafărul (new series), Contrapunct, 22, Dilema, România literară, Apostrof, Avantaje, Vineri, Amphion, Ianus, Observatorul Cultural, Libertatea, Europa liberă, Acolada etc.                   - Radio and television collaborations, host of the show Lentila de contact, TVR Cultural - Exhibitions organised in Romania and abroad (Hungary, Poland, Italy), participations in symposiums, congresses and relevant meetings in Romania and a few European countries (Italy, Republic of Moldova, Poland, Hungary, Finland). - Member of the Visual Artists’ Union of Romania, criticism department; Member of the Romanian Writers’ Guild, poetry section; Member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) - Certificate in museography; art expert, certified by the Ministry of Culture; President of the Association of Art Experts and Evaluators of Romania; evaluator of mobile cultural goods, UNEVAR member. Published books (selections): The Rule of the Game, poetry, 1996 (Writers’ Guild Award); Veto, prose poems, l998 (“Al.Odobescu” Award for poetry, Călăraşi 1998); Tetraktys, poems, 2000 (nominated for the Experiment Award of ASPRO, Bookharest Book Fair 2001); Eight True Stories/ with Wonderful Beings, poetry for children, 2000 (Writers’ Guild Award); Corneliu Baba, monograph album, Parkstone Publishing House, Paris, 2001 (nominated for the Art Book Award, Bookharest Book Fair 2001, Prize for best Romanian book published at a foreign publishing house, Bookharest Book Fair 2002); Suicide is Postponed, short prose, 2003 (nominated for the ASPRO Prose Award); Corneliu Baba, monograph album, Romanian edition, Monitorul Oficial Publishing House, 2013 Other awards and distinctions: Prize for Criticism of the Visual Artists’ Union of Romania - 1995 Cella Delavrancea Award for cultural activity in 1997 Cultural Merit Order to the rank of Knight, awarded by the Romanian President, 2004 The Oreste Tafrali Award, Poetry Academy, Iaşi, 2010 In 2002, he establishes the Luchian 12 art gallery. In 2005, he founded the Pogany Auction House. In 2005, he constitutes the Association of Art Experts and Evaluators of Romania, whose President he is.   Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

Video-streaming On Sunday, 17 January 2016, 11.00 a.m., the Black Box Hall of NTB shall host the first conference of this year, held by Matei Vișniec: Theatre and Journalism (Mutual Influences).   About the Conference It is difficult to be a writer and a journalist at the same time. As far as I am concerned, in any case, I find it increasingly difficult. Taken separately, both professions are extraordinary. When they are exercised together, they start to collide, clashing with a surprising violence. Literature pulls you up somehow, heavenward, towards everything sublime in man. Journalism, on the contrary, especially when exercised every day, knocks you down, against reality, against timeliness. Literature gives you a shred of hope, helping you to explore man in his areas of purity, of cosmic mystery. Journalism forces you to discover the misery of reality, the lack of real hope in the future, the fact that people keep making the same historical mistakes over and over again and stay as hateful as always. Literature also means poetry, hunger of nuances, coronation of man as a triumph of life, maybe of the entire universe. Journalism intervenes to face you daily with that news bulletin which is nothing but a list of horrors – the last list of horrors committed by man on the planet. Explored by the writer, man is a being with infinite potentialities. Depicted by the journalist, man stays forever the same brute incapable of giving up violence and satisfying his immediate desires. The two professions are at the same time fascinating and necessary, but when they are united in the same being, they start somehow not trusting each other anymore. The writer starts mistrusting man, because the image about man rendered by the journalist is catastrophic. And the journalist starts mistrusting the writer, because everything the latter imagines around man is refuted by reality. The image of man, as it emanates from universal literature, is generally heroic: man defies the gods, is fighting for an idea, swims against the tide, dreams of perfection, believes in progress and in the purpose of sacrifice… Even at the most pessimistic authors, for which man is an eternal prisoner of society or of history, there is a light pervading from the writer’s capacity of denouncing the existential dilemmas of the human being. The image of man, as it emanates from the journalistic endeavour, is a completely regressive one, containing the list of scourges affecting the planet today: endless conflicts, civil wars, ethnic cleansings, massacres, sinister dictatorships, terrorism, fundamentalism, extremism, drug trafficking, prostitution, sexual tourism, pornographic industry, mafias and mob networks, illegal immigration, child exploitation, pollution and ecologic disaster, hunger in the southern hemisphere and delirious consumerism in the northern hemisphere, etc. etc. etc… If one day some aliens came and tried to understand man by only using literature written for three thousand years as inspiration, their endeavour would be infinite, as well as the pleasure to discover the millions of strata of human psychology. If the same aliens used only what has been written in newspapers and only journalistic information as a starting material, they would immediately get the feeling that man and history are a clinical case, a sort of dead end in the vast adventure of life. When they are faced, the journalist and writer are accusing each other of something: namely that they are deluding themselves and allowing to be manipulated in their endeavour. So what if you have succeeded, in your writings, to surprise the unbearable contradictions of man – asks the journalist the writer – man does not improve in any case, literature does not overthrow any dictatorship and does not solve any conflict. So what if you have succeeded, through your information, to unmask stupidity, evil and cruelty – asks the writer the journalist – nobody takes your truths into account, no political man leaves his place smitten with remorse, no judge starts investigating immediately on what you have exposed. Defeated, hopeless, discouraged, the two, writer and journalist, are sometimes sharing the same table, with a single glass of beer in front of them, and are gazing into space. Someone is mocking us, they say. I know who is mocking me, says the writer, man is mocking me, the man in general, the man always escaping any definition, having too many contradictions and ambiguities to accept a final portrait. If a machine had as many contradictions as a human being, it would in no case be able to work, it would start belching smoke, spitting one’s joints and end up exploding. And I know who is mocking me, says the journalist. The politician is mocking me, the politician in general, the one who is manipulating me including my information. I have no evidence, but I know that every evening all politicians in the world are meeting and taking the daily stock: have we succeeded, are they asking themselves, to make the journalists today as well to only write about us, to make people only think about us and give us their whole time, fill their brain with our image, our speeches and even the gossip related to our lives? And the answer is YES, every time. This type of dialogue between writer and journalist is generally followed by a long moment of silence. Afterwards, the writer is telling the journalist: be careful, you are starting to drift into fiction… Matei Vișniec     About Matei Vișniec Born on 29 January 1956 in Bucovina, Rădăuţi, fabulous city divided in half (including the cemetery) by a railroad representing for the author the symmetrical axis of the universe. His mother, Minodora, was a nursery school teacher, his father, Ioan, a clerk. He made his debut with poetry in the fourth grade, when he versified a fable by La Fontaine. He then discovered in literature a zone of freedom and he nurtured himself with pages from Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Camus, Poe, Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, Nichita Stănescu and many other writers, not contaminated by Socialist Realism. He liked very much the Surrealists, the Dadaists, the fantastic stories, the absurd and grotesque theatre, the oneiric poetry and even the Anglo-Saxon realist theatre, in short, almost everything except the „official” literature of the Communist regime. He studies philosophy in Bucharest and becomes very active within the 80’s generation, being a founding member of the Monday Literary Circle. He believes in cultural resistance and in the capacity of literature to overthrow totalitarianism. He especially believes that theatre and poetry may denunciate the manipulation of man through the „great ideas", as well as the brainwashing through ideological speeches. Before 1987, he remarked himself in Romania through his purified, lucid and caustic poetry. As of 1977 he has been writing plays, which are massively circulating in the literary milieu, however they are banned from the professional stages. In September 1987 he leaves Romania, arrives in France where he applies for political asylum, starts writing in French, works at BBC in London, and as of 1990 he has been a journalist for Radio France Internationale. He becomes a French citizen in 1993, but also keeps his Romanian citizenship, allowing him to ceaselessly build cultural bridges between the two countries, between Eastern and Western Europe, between two languages, two cultures and two sensibilities. As of 1987, since he has been living in France, his plays have transgressed the borders and his name has been on posters in approximately 40 countries. Matei Vişniec is also one of the most staged authors at the Avignon Theatre Festival (Off). But he is also the author of a prose which some critics consider atypical. A first novel, The Pass-Parol Café, written in 1983, has only been published after the fall of Communism. Panic Syndrome in the City of Lights was one of the most appreciated novels of the year 2009, receiving the award of the Observator Cultural magazine. A Merchant of Novel’s Beginnings (published in 2014 at Cartea Românească) was awarded the „Augustin Frăţilă" Prize. In 2009, he received the European Award of The French Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers. In Romania, his books were distinguished with countless prizes, among others the Award of the Romanian Academy and, repeatedly, the Writer’s Guild Drama Award (the most recent even in 2015, for the drama volume The Man from Whom the Evil was Extracted).                       Recent Publications in Romania Cartea Românească Publishing House: The Spider in the Wound (theatre), The Hole in the Ceiling (theatre), The Human Trashcan & The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War (theatre), 2007; The Pass-Parol Café (novel) 2008; Panic Syndrome in the City of Lights (novel) 2009; The Release of Mr. K (novel) 2010; Dinner with Marx (poetry), 2011; Preventive Disorder (novel), 2012; Word Cabaret (theatre), 2013; A Merchant of Novel’s Beginnings (novel), The Man from Whom the Evil was Extracted(theatre), 2014. Paralela 45 Publishing House: The Town With a Single Inhabitant (poetry anthology), A Paris Attic Overlooking Death (theatre), 2005; The One-Winged Man (theatre), 2006; How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients (theatre), 2007; Just Imagine that You are God! (theatre), The Story of the Panda Bears told by a Saxophonist who has a Girlfriend in Frankfurt & Target-Woman and Her Ten Lovers (theatre) 2008; Occident Express & About the Sensation of Elasticity When Walking Upon Corpses(theatre), 2009; The Man in the Circle (short theatre anthology), 2011. Humanitas Publishing House: The Chekhov Machine & On the Frailty of Stuffed Seagulls (theatre) 2008; The Trial of Communism through Theatre (three plays with political topic, 2010); Love Letters to a Chinese Princess (prose – poetic theatre), 2011. His plays and novels have been translated and published in Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Iran, and Morocco.   Translated by Simona Nichițeanu