Radar Sofia is inviting you to Artwork by Florin Flueras, in collaboration with Eliza Trefas, presented in the frame of RadOST – a residency in partnership with Æther, Swimming Pool, and Radar Sofia, along with the Akademie Schloss Solitude and the Goethe-Institut Sofia.

Artwork borrows from somatic, spiritual, and therapeutic methods and aesthetics, but it is mainly a way to recontextualize and activate artworks in a “technique” (“method”) format. It has Flueras’s Unworks at its core (Unexperiences, Unimages, Unvisitors, Unhere, Unexist), and it expands to incorporate works by other artists. Artwork is ambiguous – technique, performance, therapy, workshop, exhibition, educative and promotional event – an artwork and a method at the same time.

According to Flueras,

“Technologies of the self,” or “forms of life” experiments, were the domain of religion and spirituality – very much based on tradition, discipline, dogmas, and rigid forms of practices that have not been updated in hundreds or thousands of years. Art is where experiences and practices that appear in dialog with contemporary situations and phenomena are proposed. Nietzsche saw the potential of approaching life through art, but he noticed that, sadly, artists were not applying their craft to it.

Artwork aims to remediate that and to contribute to the urgent project of affecting the forms of life that enable current realities.

“Often the therapeutic and transformative functions of art are minimized and avoided because of the perception that they diminish an artwork, or even expel it from the art field. Yet, there are artists who have transformed their lives or parts of their lives into art. Artwork explores the opposite, the transformation of art into life – the embodiment of artworks-based forms of thinking, feeling, and acting. Many artworks explore new thoughts, new sensibilities and forms of experience. Why all the effort to create them only to exist as finished objects and products to be consumed? They should be practiced. Art shouldn’t just be seen, it should be lived,” say the performers.

The performers have an ambiguous presence (Artwork method representatives / gallery guards / artworks), and they can work with interested visitors / clients, individually or in groups. People can choose their degree of participation on the client-spectator continuum.

More about Artwork: https://www.fflueras.ro/2020/06/artwork.html

This project takes place in the frame of the Eastern Europe Artist-In-Residency- Exchange Program of the Akademie Schloss Solitude and its partners in Sofia – Æther, Radar Sofia, and Swimming Pool. It is supported by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the State Province of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and Goethe Institute Sofia.

The event complies with all anti-epidemic measures introduced due to the Covid-19 crisis.

Florin Flueras’ work expands into spheres of politics, philosophy, spirituality, education, and health care, affecting their codes and protocols. Together with Alina Popa he created alternative art environments, artworks as Artworlds (Unsorcery, The Clinic, Black Hyperbox). The Candidate is another entity that he initiated with Ion Dumitrescu based on their Postspectacle practice of applying contemporary art tools to other zones of reality. In his recent work Flueras intervenes in the artworks-audience implicit relations. In some venues it appears uninvited – Unofficial Unworks. His work has been shown at Fap Sao Paulo, DEPO Istanbul, Ujazdowski Warsaw, Jardim Equatorial Sao Paulo, MUMOK Kino Vienna, Aleppo Brussels, HAU Berlin, Salonul de Proiecte Bucharest, Suprainfinit Bucharest, Europalia Brussels, BOZAR Brussels…

Eliza Trefas is a performer and choreographer working in the fields of contemporary dance and visual arts. She is currently doing her own research and participating in collaborative projects, pursuing further her interest in bridging visible and invisible forms of life through the body. As a performer, she has worked with various artists including Florin Flueras, Valentina de Piante, Thomas Steyaert, and Inger-Reidun Olsen. She has recently presented her work in contexts such as eXplore Festival Bucharest, Bang Torres Vedras, and Multiplicidades Festival Santa Cruz.