Mihai Pop - Plan B Gallery

by Ioana Ciocan

In 2007 you were the commissar of “Low Budget Monuments” art show and in 2015 the curator of Adrian Ghenie`s exhibition “Darwin’s Room” – both included in Romania`s Pavilion at the Venice Biennale . How did the Romanian contemporary art context develop since then?

The evolution was predictable: we have art shows that are more clearly defined; a few voices stand out, some doing autonomous art, far away from the here-and-now that has been discussed so much in recent years. Socio-political art became semi-institutionalized in order to function more efficiently and the historical positions were reconsidered because this is the current trend. Generally speaking, people are working within a framework that is wider and wider, and more global; even the local mediocre artists are more vocal within this development. If I were to quote Adrian Ghenie, “this is the good news. The bad news is that we are essentially alone.” As for any other development, personal effort is the engine and not so much the context (and this statement comes from me – a person who has built and fed contexts, I am oiling the mechanism, I am easing the processes…). Coming back to your question, Venice is a mirror of the scene, because, implicitly, it discovers its selection and financing mechanisms – all under the immense pressure of predictability (it is difficult to remain calm knowing the public is so numerous and diverse …). In the last 10 years, Romania has sent to Venice various and well formed positions, regardless of whether we liked the particular artist or not. When things were not that coherent, Venice showed it immediately because Venice is revelatory…As far as I am concerned, the difference between 2007 and 2015 lies in understanding the context: Venice is rather fashioned for relevant individual positions, with a history behind, and not so much for group projects. And the similarity between the two moments in time, also as far as I am concerned, is the same student-like unconsciousness that made me jump last minute into each of the projects. Every time I said to myself, while I was already in the game and it was too late, that “if I knew what was coming, I wouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place”.

The success of Plan B Gallery, which you established in 2005 together with Adrian Ghenie, has placed Cluj on the map of international contemporary art. Why did you consider that the city of Cluj able to provide a platform for developing a private gallery?

The truth is that 10 years ago when we opened the gallery, we didn’t think strategically for a minute, we didn’t really choose anything (of course, besides the exhibitions we have organized). Even the term “established” is far from the reality of those times. At the beginning, the project didn’t have anything of greatness. Each step was generated by the previous step, it was rather something like “and now what?!” We were with whom we had consistent dialogues (it is impossible to start an art show without knowing the artists!). The world was smaller and friendship played an important role. In short, there weren`t many alternatives back in 2005 and we were functioning anyway according to the idea of “doing”, with or without visibility. In fact, the great benefit for Cluj is that we have enhanced its inherent value. Back in the days, in Cluj if we were to do things based on some initial market study, we would have ended up doing nothing. Now, everyone wants to be a part of this so called success story. And like any other scene that grew up too fast and too disorderly, the late comers are the most vocal and strategic ones. Maybe it is the time for a reassessment – this time we have recently transformed the display space of the gallery located in the Paintbrush Factory into a place for workshops and projects carried out together with the local suburbia…and we re-named it accordingly (Domino, named after an exhibition of Ciprian Mureșan).

You have traded Romanian and international artists with Plan B Gallery in Cluj, but also with the one in Berlin. What is a major difference in the way in which the two markets are trading?

We don’t trade artists. In general, the corporatist language has nothing to do with art, regardless of the market’s dynamics; adopting the behavior of the business world is one of the current mistakes of those opening an art gallery. But, coming back to your question, Cluj and Berlin are not different – in a globalized world we can’t really talk about specific and essential elements within markets. Also, the modus operandi of a gallery is the same and it sums up a set of internal principles; selling is one of the elements, and it is not the last one of this process. If you strictly mean selling artworks, then we can speak about differences between financing and taxing systems, etc. But these are technicalities, without any relevance for our discussion.

Plan B Gallery is present in the world`s largest contemporary art fairs. The most important transactions are made within the fairs or at the gallery?

Until recently, it was at the fairs – they had a great importance in our evolution because there we would meet the world of art in a short time and an extremely dense ambiance. It is a manner of placing the world of art into the abyss, with everything it has right now, from the most important museum directors to the people who think they are collectors. In an art fair, the gallery is equally visible and lost in a sea of objects thus forcing someone to clarify how they will present themselves. It is a continuous polishing exercise in connection with the display galleries (the two should not be mistaken one for the other). The most interesting conversations on artworks, geography and the system are produced at the fairs, out of the urgent need to communicate.

The continuation beyond these contexts has transformed into friendships. With some rare exceptions, the artists who were invited to the Biennale were seen at the fairs. Recently, I organized a group exhibition in Sao Paulo, following the relationship I had developed with the Mendes Wood DM people that I met at the fairs – and it was of great significance for the program of the gallery. This is an example on the dynamics between the two contexts! These meetings have produced visions later on; there are people who visit us in Berlin, many people who are coming to Cluj. Financially speaking, I would say there is a balance between the trades made at fairs and the ones made in the gallery. And then, unfortunately, there are more and more people buying online, so there is a third dimension of these trades, which is becoming more and more relevant.

Contemporary art is not well represented in the Romanian institutions, while the independent scene and the art market are continuously growing. Do you consider it necessary to create some private alternative forms to institutionalize contemporary art?

I don’t consider anything to be necessary. Things should develop naturally (and this natural may seem at the beginning something completely crazy!), otherwise nothing should be done. I admire my colleagues who are producing cultural strategies, but only in the sense that these are almost touching the impossible. I took the decision to use private money 11 years ago, when I had opened the gallery, and it was clear to me. The little public money out there meant a corrupt system, controlled by lame pseudo-cultural characters. Back then, private money was the only solution. Today we tend to have an inflation of alternative projects and everyone wants to make part in the creative industries, whether it is art or coffee; all nowadays artists are also managers. Unfortunately, all these cannot replace vision and clarity.

Can an emergent artist hope to be represented in the Plan B Gallery?

Yes, anytime. But this doesn’t mean that it will happen often. Despite the big number of artists, excellence is a rare thing. Besides that, a gallery has limited resources, I don’t see any reason to excessively add another artist on the gallery’s list. We prefer providing resources to those who know how to use them; just like any other thing, resources can be inefficient if received too fast (of course, there are some important exceptions).

The art market, and maybe even the art scene as a whole, is permanently searching for new names. I have grew up in a world where time would pass differently; it was quite an academic world, with its good and bad, where an art show meant the achievement and the mature conclusion of a timely transformation process. It may seem like an inconvenience today, but I prefer relationships built in time rather than noise    and shatter. I imagine a gallery that continues to exist long term - the relationship with the artist must be carefully founded.

Plan B Gallery has worked together with a series of important curators and took over the international art center role. Will you continue with this direction of artistic programming or was it just an approach that was produced by the current context?

As a gallery, it is important to create a context for the artists, to represent their practice, not simply display their work. Art history is equally a history of contexts and if there is this understanding, then things will happen naturally; the working together you’ve just mentioned is the result of a continuous practice. We shall open a space in Cluj for a few reunited art collections (there is an increasing number of people collecting things around us) and it will function as a small museum relevant for the Romanian art of the last 60 years. And this is a very large combined context, with implications beyond the local scene. This is the need for clarity and it can only be built together with others.