Nemes, Ioana (RO)
Carlsberg Tap E
Ioana Nemes
Born 1979 in Bucharest, Romania
Lives in Bucharest
Ioana Nemes's project Monthly Evaluations goes back to 2001 and is inextricably
linked to the events which led to the discovery of her artistic vocation. For Nemes was a professional handball player until an injury put an end to her career and she decided to be an artist. A new world opened to her and to get a perspective on it, she evolved The Wall Project on the dining room wall of the small flat she shared with her mother and twin brother. The wall was divided into two sections, with one side chronicling Nemes's aspirations and unrealized projects while the other chronicled aspirations that had been met and projects that had been realized. Every time a slip was moved from one side to the other, Nemes took a photo and archived it.
In 2005, two things happened that were key to the project: The Wall Project was
shown in a gallery, and Nemes moved out of the flat. These events impacted on the project, which came increasingly to be focused around how time might be made visible. Nemes developed a strong interest in the British writer Virginia Woolf's understanding of time and the Swiss psychologist Max Lüscher's ideas about colour, and out of this came Monthly Evaluations. Nemes developed a system with five parameters: physical, emotional, intellectual, financial and the luck factor. Since 2005, each day has been evaluated against these parameters; it is allocated a colour and a quotation or a saying before being archived along with all the other days.
When Monthly Evaluations goes on show, Nemes ponders all the other works to be shown in the exhibition and its overarching idea, and subsequently goes through her archive, plucking out a small clutch of days. These are then translated into murals or plastic objects that resemble gigantic pills.
Even though Nemes's starting premise is her own self-realization project, Monthly Evaluations describes a more generic experience which relates to work, ambition, progress and happiness. The project argues for a conception of identity, which, rather than remaining static, is something the individual is continually shaping on the basis of the options and opportunities that present themselves. This is the starting point for Nemes's critical stance vis-ŕ-vis the settings in which she is a player: exhibitions, the wider art scene and the new Europe. -NH
Lives in Bucharest
Ioana Nemes's project Monthly Evaluations goes back to 2001 and is inextricably
linked to the events which led to the discovery of her artistic vocation. For Nemes was a professional handball player until an injury put an end to her career and she decided to be an artist. A new world opened to her and to get a perspective on it, she evolved The Wall Project on the dining room wall of the small flat she shared with her mother and twin brother. The wall was divided into two sections, with one side chronicling Nemes's aspirations and unrealized projects while the other chronicled aspirations that had been met and projects that had been realized. Every time a slip was moved from one side to the other, Nemes took a photo and archived it.
In 2005, two things happened that were key to the project: The Wall Project was
shown in a gallery, and Nemes moved out of the flat. These events impacted on the project, which came increasingly to be focused around how time might be made visible. Nemes developed a strong interest in the British writer Virginia Woolf's understanding of time and the Swiss psychologist Max Lüscher's ideas about colour, and out of this came Monthly Evaluations. Nemes developed a system with five parameters: physical, emotional, intellectual, financial and the luck factor. Since 2005, each day has been evaluated against these parameters; it is allocated a colour and a quotation or a saying before being archived along with all the other days.
When Monthly Evaluations goes on show, Nemes ponders all the other works to be shown in the exhibition and its overarching idea, and subsequently goes through her archive, plucking out a small clutch of days. These are then translated into murals or plastic objects that resemble gigantic pills.
Even though Nemes's starting premise is her own self-realization project, Monthly Evaluations describes a more generic experience which relates to work, ambition, progress and happiness. The project argues for a conception of identity, which, rather than remaining static, is something the individual is continually shaping on the basis of the options and opportunities that present themselves. This is the starting point for Nemes's critical stance vis-ŕ-vis the settings in which she is a player: exhibitions, the wider art scene and the new Europe. -NH