VISION:Bringing sustainable development for Romanian arts and artists through diversified artistic expressions, in an European context.

MISSION:The mission of MORA Foundation is to ensure sustainable artistic practice for Romanian artists and to contribute to the development of audiences for arts in Romania, through encouraging the artists’ individual development and through engaging them in a wide range of cross art form practices, together with community engagement and audience development.

HISTORY: MORA Foundation has emerged naturally from the work of the “Grigore Mora” Gallery and the Avrig 35 company’s cultural policy, taking over the gallery’s activities and further developing them.“Grigore Mora” art gallery started in 2004 as a department of Avrig 35 real estate company, in order to continue the company’s policy focused on supporting young Romanian artists through constant acquisitions. Over the past 6 years, the company has gathered a collection of more than 1500 artworks, signed mainly by young Romanian artists, but also XIXth century Romanian and worldwide artworks. The autumn of 2005 brought a broadening of the gallery’s work from the mainly traditional exhibition space towards a cross art form practice that continued until the beginning of 2008, when MORA Foundation took over its practice and developed it further.

MORA Foundation is now developing several programmes – the MORA Gallery’s programme of exhibitions, Romanian contemporary and modern artworks acquisitions, Art to Rent programme (artworks rentals for companies and individuals), financing individual and group art projects through direct and indirect support, educational programme and animation projects encouraging free access and audience development for arts, individual grant programme, lifelong learning for artists and international cooperation programme.

ensure a fair level of Romanian artworks acquisitions;

ensure a good visibility of the artworks and therefore a good visibility of artists, at a local, national and international leve;l

facilitate commissioning for Romanian artists;

sustain and develop individual and group arts projects;

offer and ensure opportunities for training and lifelong learning for artists to develop their arts practices and new abilities as art-ists as well as project managers

sustain and develop cross art form practice projects;create opportunities for public engagement in contemporary arts practices;

develop present and future audiences for arts, through ensur-ing the access, arts participation and developing educational projects for children, youth and adults;

facilitate new alternatives for the development of the artistic practices for romanian artists, through local, national and inter-national cooperation;

enable support for artistic mobility, networking, information, and the circulation and access of artistic works;

assist artists and arts organisations, through grant giving and other necessary means to contribute to the artistic fiber of local life.

AIMS and GOALS

As we live up to our mission, the staff of MORA Foundation strives to:

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More Opportunities for Romanian Artists – why? and how?

Why:

In the past 20 years, arts and artists have been placed last on the national and local agenda . The role and importance of arts for the wellbeing of individuals and society have been too long neglected or even put away. The essential part that culture and arts play in the development of the society, communities and individuals have been mainly overlooked by the policy makers, the artists themselves being left alone in the transitional economics of the country. This is why-Consequently, the bodies left to take care of the arts and artists have been mainly the civil and the private sector. The civil sector is still in a process of development and definition, as for the private sector, the economic advan-tages of arts are still in a process of being recognized, with only a few pioneers already active.

How:

The Foundation grants More Opportunities for Romanian Artists through creating and developing a basis on which the artists can benefit according to their own interests, and through which they are offered opportunities to extend and develop their artistic and also managerial skills.

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Ensuring more opportunities for artists brings along the necessity of ensuring an audience for the arts.

We make this possible through public engage-ment in arts projects, animation, informational and educational programme that brings a strategic dialogue between the artists and the public.

Supporting artists in Romania implies offering alternatives for continuing their professional development, ensuring them opportunities for payed work, and also basis for their personal development, including career planning and lifelong learning. It implies setting up a context in which they can express their individual and/or group artistic ideas, constantly challenging them to innovate and create, in order to devel-op their own art expressions, but also encour-aging them to get involved in a wider economic and social context.

The cross art form practice developed by the “Grigore Mora” art gallery in the past 3 years and continued now by the MORA Founda-tion is based on public and community arts projects, arts participation, animation, educa-tion, European cultural cooperation and train-ing projects.

More Opportunities for Romanian Artists – how?

We advocate a reciprocal relationship where the arts community enriches the public and the public enriches the arts community’s practice. Public art creates opportunities for public engagement in contemporary arts practice, through using the wide public arena as a space to exhibit, perform or construct work.

We assist artists in creating innovative and cut-ting-edge public art projects, ensuring that so-ciety can engage with the contemporary art in the public realm, artists being encouraged to test and extend their arts practice. We are also concerned with developing the cultural literacy of young people and their skills as critical consumers of the arts. The future belongs to the next generation, but we don’t forget that the future begins now. This is why audience development for arts is one of our major concerns and we develop and support animation and educational projects.

The arts contribute significantly to the mental, physical, and social well being of society. We recognize the contribution the arts can make to the health, quality of life and social well be-ing of all – individuals and groups – in society.

MORA Art Gallery

ART COLLECTION

ART TO RENT programme

GRANTS for individuals programme

GRANTS for organizations programme

CROSS ART FORM PRACTICE programme

EDUCATIONAL programme for children, youth and adults

TRAINING AND Life long LEARNING programme for artists

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION programme

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It first started by exhibiting the artists whose previous work was to be found in the art col-lection of Avrig 35, afterwards broadening the spectrum by inviting other artists to exhibit within its space too.

The gallery’s discourse is based on the artist’s own discourse, the artist him(her)self being invited to sustain their work in front of the public through both artistic and rhetoric dis-course. It is one of the distinct features of the gallery in the capital’s artistic environment, being marked by the absence of the curator, the traditional mediator between the artwork and the public. Thus, the artist is offered the choice or the opportunity to experiment with the forms of communication with his/her own public.

The gallery is focused on presenting and supporting exhibition projects that are developed on concepts that bring spontaneity and surprises. The young or emerging artists are also welcome in its space to experiment and to develop a personal experience regarding the exhibition context in itself.

At least once a year, the Gallery hosts also artists from outside of Romania, in order to di-versify the artistic expressions as much as possible and to create communication between different artistic identities. STNC XHB and foreign artists have had their work exhibited

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During almost 4 years, the Gallery has exhibited artwork of well-known and less well-known Romanian artists, of close genera-tions: Anca Benera, Irina Botea, Suzana Dan, Mara Patriche, Aneli Munteanu, Ovidiu Feneş. Also group exhibitions: focAR, Matei Arnăutu and Raluca Teodoru, STNC XHB and foreign art-ists have had their work exhibited here: Robert Worley, David Smith, Melaina Barnes, Yannick Labrousse, Dzuguuun.

In 2008, it hosted a parallel event of the Bucharest Biennale - Utopia Travel, a project put together by two Austrian artists: Emanuel Danesch and David Rych. The MORA Gallery runs an open policy that emphasizes not the name of the artist, but the concept and the creation, the artwork itself, offering to the artist the opportunity to exhibit and to be seen by an educated public.

The gallery can be considered as a promoter of young artists – after exhibiting in the MORA gallery, some of them have been invited to exhibit their work in other galleries or at MNAC – Ovidiu Feneş or STNC EXH (in the near future).

The gallery also hosts at least once a year experimental music events, jazz or young DJs performances.

We intend to extend the promotion of young artists to other art domains, like dance, theater or film.

MORA Art Gallery

Art Collection

The essential part of the MORA Foundation and one of the most important means to support artists and art is constant artworks acquisitions - painting, sculpture, engraving, pho-tography, ceramics, lithography, icons, done on wood, glass, metal, cardboard, canvas, paper, using oil, acrylic, ink, char-coal, watercolors or mixed techniques, of large, medium and small sizes.

The art collection includes now, after 6 years of pursuing this policy, over 1500 artworks, emphasizing the first generation of Romanian artists of the 3rd millennium: over 40 young creators from all over Romania, with very representative sets of artwork, representative also for the first decade of the XXIst century Ro-manian art.

The acquisitions have started six years ago, at the Internation-al Art Fair, Bucharest (TIAV 2002). Throughout the years, the collection gathered a strong core of emergent Romanian art, signed by “VIP” young artists such as Dumitru Gorzo, Suzana Dan, Anca Benera, Irina Bucan Botea or Virgil Scripcariu, al-ready recognized as marking this first decade. Thus, the Avrig art collection has developed as an archive of the representative artworks after the year 2000, also considering that the public institutions didn’t make any acquisitions before 2007.

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Another substantial part of the collection is represented by artworks signed by promising young names such as Irina Abaza, Marian Coman (engraving), Irina Tănase or Aurel Ţâr. Artworks signed by important young sculptors (Camelia Cilianu, Caius Rotaru), engravers (Brânduşa Bontea, Cristina Trif, Pavel Pop) and assembling artists (Ovidiu and Alina Feneş) are also part of the collection, along with several ceramics decorative and canonic paint-ings (icons).

The hard core of the collection is represented by Romanian contemporary art, with pres-tigious signatures (35 authors, renowned nationally and internationally) such as Liviu Stoi-coviciu (44 artworks), Valeriu Mladin (large format artworks), Laura Covaci, Prince Monyo (colored bronzes) or Constantin Pacea, Valentin Popa, Miruna Budişteanu. Important art-ists, such as Teodor Graur, Ana-Maria Smighelschi, Alfred Dumitriu or the Bistriţa group - Marcel Lupşe, Maxim Dumitraş, Miron Duca are also very well represented in the Avrig art collection. Tia Peltz and Eugen Crăciun are two of the well represented artists that passed away after 1990. Nicolae Alexi and Vlad Aurel are two of the artists-professors names in the collection.

Romanian Modern Art has its place in the collection too: Camil Ressu, Theodorescu Sion, Steriadi, Iosif Steurer, Isachie Popescu, Samuel Mutzner, Stelian Ghimpaţi stay next to An-ton Chladek’s «The Davilla Sisters».The « piece de résistance » of the international art section in the collection is Anton Kern’s «The Crucifixion» (XVIIIth century), next to a bronze relief by Henri Laurens and the Th.Al. Steinlen’s lithography.

International contemporary art pieces are signed by Kikas, M. Ebanoitze, Marius Luigana, Mitas, Aeich Thimer and Celia Ward.

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As part of the foundation policy to support Ro-manian artists, a rental programme of the art-works in the collection has been developed, offering more visibility for the artists and their work and, at the same time, offering to the business sector or individuals the perspective of a different environment inside their offices or homes – the presence of art bringing pleas-ure and beauty.

At fair fees and flexible contracts, any indi-vidual, small, medium or large enterprises are able to rent artworks to decorate their of-fice spaces, expressing themselves and their company policy in an immediate, direct and quite friendly manner – through art. Artists are here to offer their support for choosing the artworks that best suites the space and the personality of the client.

By renting a piece of art, individuals or busi-ness companies also support the artists and the MORA Foundation programming, con-sidering that all incomes are used to fulfill our mission and goals, supporting artists and their projects, involving the public in the creative process of art making and developing a better informed and educated audience for arts.

Art to Rent

The GRANTS for organizations programme of-fers financial support for group art projects and participation in art events at a local, national and international level.

Eligible for grants are Romanian organizations that develop art projects significant at local, national and/or international level. Also eligible are international organizations that develop art projects intended to promote Romanian art and artists in an international context.

The grants are very easy to access and need minimum of documentation before and after the financial support has been granted, anoth-er important alternative to the overwhelming bureaucratic procedures of the public funding.

For the grantees, this programme allows to ac-cess essential funds for developping projects that are of great importance for the develop-ment of Romanian art and for integrating Ro-manian arts and artists in an international con-text.

The GRANTS for individuals programme offers financial support for individual art projects and participation in art events at a local, national and international level.

Eligible for grants are Romanian artists and arts students that develop personal art projects that are significant at local, national and/or international level. Also eligible are artists that (are invited to) participate in national and/or in-ternational art events.

The grants are very easily accessible and need minimum of documentation before and after the financial support has been granted, an important alternative to the overwhelming bu-reaucratic procedures of the public funding.

For the grantees, this programme allows an essential freedom of movement and of per-sonal choice in the manner of spending mon-ey, thus putting the artist also in the position of the manager of his/her own work, travel or participation.

GRANTS for individuals GRANTS for organizations16

MORA Foundation has enrolled next to the Attick Association (Asociaţia din Pod) in the constant support for the public and community art programme, I LOVE BUCHAREST. The programme has already been developing public and community art projects in the cap-ital for almost 3 years now - independently (Strada Cărţii - Book Street, Roll Up Art, Puzzle Project (Ist edition), Casa Ioana etc.), interactive project proposal exhibitions (Projects.B) or as part of a bigger cultural event (Zilele Bucureştiului – Days of Bucharest, Art Delivery, Street Delivery), constantly aiming of engaging the public in the process of art creation.

Community and Public Art program I LOVE BUCHAREST:

Started in 2005, it has been developed around the following goals: • aesthetic, cultural and social rehabilitation, of Bucharest public spaces• providing the general public with a wide access to contemporary art• engaging civic consciousness and responsibility through direct involvement of the com-munity in the implementation of public and community art projects

The impact of the programme is mainly visible in the creating civic solidarity by providing opportunities for individuals from all social and age categories to experience various artistic and communication techniques at a high artistic level; creating opportunities for artists from various fields to present their works and ideas to a large and diverse public and bringing to the attention of the general public the local heritage and cultural values and the possibilities of their re-vitalization by means of art and community involvement.

By pursuing the cultural, aesthetic and social rehabilitation of a number of Bucharest spac-es, I LOVE BUCHAREST grants a wide audience access to contemporary art through its projects and actions by eliminating the barriers between the classic exhibition spaces and public spaces; it engages the civic consciousness and responsibility by means of a direct involvement of the community in the realization of the public and community art projects, and it creates a framework, in which contemporary Romanian artists, especially young art-ists, explore and communicate in a new field: community and public art.

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By pursuing the cultural, aesthetic and social rehabilitation of a number of Bucharest spaces, I LOVE BUCHAREST makes contemporary art more accessible to wide audience through its projects and actions by eliminating the barriers between the classic exhibition spaces and pub-lic spaces; it engages the civic consciousness and responsibility by means of a direct involve-ment of the community in the implementation of the public and community art projects, and it creates a framework, in which contemporary Romanian artists, especially young artists, ex-plore and communicate in a new field: commu-nity and public art.

Bucharest metroART:

Bucharest metroART is one of the ongoing projects organized as part of the I love Bucha-rest programme. Two of the Bucharest’s metro stations (Piaţa Victoriei and Gara de Nord) are now in the process of being decorated through artworks produced by a team of Romanian art-ists – Gara de Nord – and by a team of Roma-nian and English artists – Piaţa Victoriei. Arta te priveşte! (Art regards you!) - the project states, thus including also the community in the deci-sional and developmental process.

Gara de Nord metro station will be decorated by the Romanian artists using mixed tech-niques, on a theme of old and new Bucharest, based on the stated opinions of the public. We expect the work to be completed in the begin-ning of August 2008.

Piaţa Victoriei metro station is subject of a long-er process, which has already started with a se-ries of workshops for children within the space and based on the cultural and scientific offer of the three national museums in the area, also project partners: Romanian Peasant Museum, Natural History Museum and Geology Museum. Based on the children’s works, a number of art-ists (both Romanians and English) will propose artistic concepts for the decoration of the inte-rior of the metro station. Their proposals will be analyzed and selected both by the direct voting of the public and of a special jury. The winning proposals will be produced and implemented in the metro station by the second half of the year 2009.

CROSS ARTFORMPRACTICE programme

Strada Cărţii:Strada Cărţii (Book Street) has been another very successful project developed within I love Bucharest programme. The project implement-ed an artistic intervention into one very central and important public space in Bucharest – the “bouquinists” zone by the University in Bu-charest. The intervention has 2 components: banners and stencils. The banners have been printed with a selection of quotations belong-ing to Romanian and international cultural per-sonalities throughout human history, based on suggestions given directly by the Bucharestois inhabitants that have participated in a previous public action. The stencils represent portraits of very important cultural personalities from Romania and from all over the world. In the several months that the banners stood on the columns of the University, the zone became a very popular one, inhabitants, students and tourists paying daily visits there, calling friends and families, taking pictures, writing and tex-ting the chosen quotation(s).

The development of the second edition of the project is now in process in Bucharest, this time the printings are focusing on the popular traditional sayings from all over the world.

Desenează pentru Bucureşti:

Desenează pentru Bucureşti (Draw for Bucha-rest) is an artistic project that is constructed entirely with elements (drawings) of Bucharest inhabitants, students and tourists. A couple of animation projects organized by the I love Bu-charest team have encouraged people to draw for Bucharest, after their own will and imagina-tion. For three days, people of all age, sex or education have created their own visual mes-sages. The drawings have been put together by the artists in a composition that is waiting to be printed on a 256 square meters mesh that is to be installed on a façade of the University of Bucharest.

CROSS ARTFORMPRACTICE programme22

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Roll Up Art:

Roll Up Art, a project that gathers visual con-temporary artworks created by Romanian and international artists, has already developed its first 2 editions. The first one, tooking place in November 2006 was focused on the Romani-an artists, but the second edition (March 2008) broaden the international context in which Ro-manian art has been presented. Hundreds of artworks from different art sectors (fine arts, photography, video, contemporary dance) have been projected on a big canvas (62 square meters) in open and very crowded pub-lic spaces in Bucharest. The project has two very important sides – one promotional (for the artists and their work) and one educational (for the general public, for passers-by).

CROSS ARTFORMPRACTICE programme

Zilele Bucureştiului:

Zilele Bucureştiului (Days of Bucharest) is an annual event organized by the municipali-ty’s cultural center, ArCub. The gallery and I love Bucharest programme had been invited to participate in the 2006 edition. Several projects have been developed on the 4 days of the event, involving 15 Romanian artists and the community living in the event’s area, the old part of Bucharest. It was an opportunity for both artists and the community, which is mainly consisted of Roma families.

The projects delivered within the event were based on dialogue and cooperation with the community in the area, which opened per-spectives and also contributed to the inhabit-ants social integration.

CROSS ARTFORMPRACTICE programme

Art Delivery:

Art Delivery, a project of cooperation between different public institutions – The National Order of Architects, the Council of one sector in Bu-charest – together with different cultural NGOs and private initiatives, like the “Grigore Mora” Art Gallery itself, has been a first edition of pub-lic two-day event on one of the old streets in Bucharest. The cultural organizations joined to-gether on the issue of awareness and attitude towards the invasion of cars everywhere, on every street of Bucharest. “We close the street for the cars and leave it to the people”, this was the statement of the event, transforming it into a friendly and very promising cultural environ-ment. Street Delivery was the second year’s theme. The art gallery participated with original projects both years, attracting a very important segment of the public and gaining participants for the I love Bucharest projects.

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Puzzle Project, 1st edition - Workshop – art camp at «La Motoare» - National Theatre, August 2006

“Puzzle Project” is an urban project conceived as an open and interactive art camp that has brought together for its first edition, organized within I LOVE BUCHAREST, 22 artists from Ro-mania, the Netherlands, Spain, USA, Repub-lic of Moldova. The artists have each painted one piece of a conceptual puzzle, which will continue to grow with each participation, each workshop, each year. During the first edition of the project, 20 pieces of the puzzle were com-pleted.

CROSS ARTFORMPRACTICE programme

Ioana House 2 – Daycare Center - Bucurestii Noi district, June-July 2006

In June 2006, the volunteer artists of the I LOVE BUCHAREST program have decorated the façade of the homeless shelter Ioana House 2 in the Bucurestii Noi district of Bucharest. The opening of the mural was attended by his excellence Jonathan Scheele, the Head of the European Commission delegation in Romania.

Ioana House 1 project was developed and im-plemented at the night shelter for homeless people in Bucharest, together with a team of English and Romanian artists and arts manag-ers in the autumn of 2005.

CROSS ARTFORMPRACTICE programme

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Education through Art:

An educational programme, consisting of art classes for children and adults has been developed by the art gallery. Romanian and in part British artists have delivered workshops and art classes for children of 5-12 years of age and young Romanian artists.

Every course is based on a theme and an artistic technique, thus offering the children the possibility to become familiar with different domains of the arts and to develop their imagination and creativity, but also artistic abilities.

Each course closes with a group exhibition of the artistic ob-jects created by the pupils during the 4-6 weeks of practice.

Educational programmefor children, youth and adults

Training and lifelong learningprogramme for artists

Supporting artists in Romania implies offering alternatives for continuing their professional development, ensuring opportuni-ties for payed work, and also basis for their personal develop-ment, including career planning and lifelong learning. It implies setting up a context in which they can express their individual and/or group artistic ideas, constantly challenging them to inno-vate and create, in order to develop their own art expressions, but also encouraging them to get involved in a wider economic and social context.

We do that through workshops, training sessions and exchange projects that bring new opportunities for the individual and col-lective development of artists and team. More direct lifelong learning is achieved through means of personal experience of the artists in developing and coordinating individual and group cross art form projects.

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International cooperation programme

The International Cultural Exchange ProgramACE – ROMANIA (Arts and Cultural Enterprise – Romania)

Started: 2005Goal: fostering mutual understanding between forms of artistic expression, local profes-sional development of the artist, and accessing the artistic experience and artistic expres-sion of other nations through partnerships focused on projects that combine various art forms.Impact: Breaking down the communication barriers, education and encouraging the artistic expression. Results: Completing three projects together with Free Form Arts Trust, London-based part-ner.

It first started in 2005, aiming to foster mutual understanding between forms of artistic expression, local professional development of the artist, and access the artistic experience and artistic expression of other nations through partnerships focused on projects that com-bine various art forms. Breaking down the communication barriers, education and encouraging the artistic ex-pression, so far within it three projects were completed together with Free Form Arts Trust, London-based partner:

• 2005- Bucharest - Casa Ioana 1 – artistic interventions in the space of the overnight shel-ter in Bucharest, through workshops with the residents and cultural and artistic exchanges between the Romanian and British artists;

• 2007- Bucharest – project Case pentru Îngeri – Houses for Angels, in the Sfanta Mac-rina daily center for the children, through workshops with the children from disadvantaged families, mural paintings and decorative installations that were made by the Romanian and British artists based on the objects created by the children in the workshops;

• 2007- London - exchange and professional development of Romanian and British artists, through team work in 5 public and community art projects in East London.

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MORA Foundation approaches art widely, in terms of traditional presentation, but also en-courages art as a living form, as a free form which can be altered, in relation with space and public. Here art is appreciated for what it is, but also for what it can be, through interaction between creators: artists and audience - individuals or group of individuals, community.

The diverse mix of quality arts programming of MORA Foundation is bringing fresh and rich perspective for arts and artists in Romania, also challenging and encouraging the direct involvement of public and communities in the creative process of making artworks meant for to public spaces.

The diversity and the dynamics of our activities determines more opportunities for artists (both individual and as group), audience development, social involvement and last, but not least, sustainable urban development.

MORA Foundation activities are coordinated, conceptualized, developed and implemented by its dedicated staff:

MIHAELA MIRONMarketing & PR Officerelamiron@gmail.com

MARA PATRICHEArtistic Directormarapatriche@gmail.com

IRINA ABAZAGeneral Manageririna.abaza@gmail.com

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Strada Grigore Mora, nr. 666, sector 1; 009245 Bucuresti; tel: 021 344 5566; web: www.fundatia-mora.org

More Opportunities for Romanian Artists