Alina Serban

Born in 1978
Lives and works in Bucharest and Frankfurt

Program YCI 2007 participant

Member of AICA Romania and AICA International,
Member IKT (International Curators of Contemporary Art Association)

2005

MA University of Arts, Bucharest "History and representation. The case of
historical painting during Dej Regime in Romania"

2002

BA Art History and Theory, University of Arts, Bucharest "The communist cultural underground 1960-1980. Experimental art in Romania and the case of ready-made"

Current Affiliation

PhD Courtauld Institute of Art, London UK "Form, content and engaged aestheticism. Towards a new style in Romanian art during 1944-1965"

Professional Activities

2007

co-founder of p+4 Collective Builders- Centre of Visual Research, Bucharest

ongoing coordinator of visual art section of the cultural portal mykinda.ro

2006

curator Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany

2002

ongoing editor ARHITEXT, Architecture and Art monthly magazine, Bucharest (RO)

Texts in catalogues

2007

"The legacy of criticism", AICA Annual Congress Book
"The Other Space", Public Space Bucharest 2007 publication
"The Poetry of Inquiry. On the Categories of Intensity, Enigmacy and Speech", catalogue pf the artist Andrea Faciu (under   publication) Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren
"Art as social practice", catalogue of the artist Matei Bejenaru

2006

"Indirect Speech", catalogue Indirect Speech exhibition, Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel
"Far away from utopia" catalogue exhibition Interrupted Histories, Moderna Galerjia, Ljubljana 

2005

"Industrial Disease", in Critique of Pure Image - Between Fake and Quotation, code flow (eds.)

Publications

Publishes essays, theoretical article, interviews in ARHITEXT, Bucharest; IDEA, Cluj; PRAESENS, Budapest; TURA_BAR, Bucharest; DECI, Bucharest, DILEMMA, Bucharest, THE CULTURAL OBSERVER, Bucharest, VECTOR, Iasi, CONTRAPUNCT, Bucharest, INTERMEDIA, Arad, ART-E-FACT, Zagreb, DERIVE, Vienna, UMELEC, Prague, ANAMNEZE, Lisbon, DELOS, Ljubljana; BLOK- Journal of Stalinist and post-Stalinist Studies Poland, GAZET¹ART, Strasbourg, FLASH ART, Milan, U-TURN Quadrennial Magazine, Copenhagen

Short list of publication

2007

Points of view on Romanian art scene, U-TURN Quadrennial Magazine, Copenhagen
Sublime Passages, FLASH ART
On Diversion. Peter Pan versus Dorian Gray, ARHITEXT
The institution: friend or foe?, VECTOR, Iasi 

2006

To imagine Iasi. Alternative strategies of knowledge, VECTOR, Iasi
Towards a new eclectic movement, PRAESENS, Budapest
Anecdotic Space, ARHITEXT, Bucharest
Die Paraxoxa einer Besseren Welt, DERIVE 

2005

Curating my own condition, GAZET¹ART, Strasbourg
Legitimating the narrative discourse of history, BLOK, Journal of Stalinist and post-Stalinist Studies, Poland
Art as a social practice, PRAESENS, Budapest
Sculpture in the age of doubt, ARHITEXT, Bucharest
The politics of a representation, VECTOR, Iasi
The Super-exposed City and the New Limits of the Public Space, ART-E-FACT, Zagreb
Building contexts, CULTURAL OBSERVER, Bucharest
The end of innocence, ARHITEXT, Bucharest

Lectures / Talks

2007

Left Commas, Challenge EastWest, Copenhagen, organized by Danish Art Council and U-TURN Quadrennial of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
One day teaching Session, Royal College of Art, MA in Curating Studies, London
ehe.org project Frankfurt / Radioprojects- Axiom: On Walter Benjamin Radioshows for children, dreamworlds, language and translations.
Conversations with Susan Buck-Morss, Hans Heino Ewers, Alina Serban. In cooperation with Michele Salonia and José Manuel Romero
The legacy of working poor. Assemblage as a political strategy in Romania

2006

"Assemblage, Bricolage and the Obsolete" Henry Moore Institute Leeds
Kitchen Talk-IASPIS (International Artists and Curator Studio in Sweden), Stockholm
The state of art criticism. Strategies for survival of art criticism today, "Critical Evaluation Reloaded" AICA Congress (International Association of Art Critics) Paris
The lost dimension: The collectivization of modernism and the last generation of Romanian avant-garde, SocialEast Forum ­Art and Ideology, MIRIAD, Manchester University, UK
venting/ Re-writing the history. Visual representation and historical narration, Conference CEU Graduate in Humanities "Power, State, and Society:
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Discourses, Social Groups and Agency in Central and Eastern Europe" 

2005

Between situation/Double life, IG Bildende Kunst, Vienna in the framework of schnitt.networking.lecture
The politics of a representation, Conference "Identity and Integration", organized by ARTeon, Poznan, Poland
Curating my own condition, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam
Curating the post-socialist condition, Kunstlerhaus Buchsenhausen, Innsbruck, Austria
Public space, social implication and artistic practice, Kunstraum Goethestrasse, Linz
About a contemporary archive, presentation TRAFO, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Budapest
Curator (sélection)

Curatorial activity: short presentation

One night video screening in the framework of "Nebenschauplatz", KUNSTHALLE FRIDERICIANUM; Kassel (2006)

Indirect Speech, KUNSTHALLE FRIDERICIANUM; Kassel (2006)

Minimal Diversions, VECTOR GALLERY, Iasi (2006)

Motion Parade, FOTOGALERIE WIEN, Vienna (2005)

In Between, Sibiu, Romania (2005)

Longtime, TRAFO, Contemporary Art Center, Budapest (2005)

Against?space, Dynamo Gallery, Budapest (2004)

Draft. Shake night. Museum of Contemporary Art, Kalinderu MediaLab, Docu-fiction, Next emergence from the edge of simulation, Bucharest (2003)

One curator/ one artist/one work, Meta Gallery, Bucharest (2003)

Grants/Residencies

2007

Kunstverein Frankfurt Residency (September/October)

Harald Szeeman grant, IKT

Curators Research Trip London, Ratiu Foundation UK

2006

IASPIS curators research program in Sweden, Stockholm

Curatorial Workshop "Art, Life and Curating", in the frame of the exhibition Art, Life and Confusion, Belgrade October Art Salon

4th Berlin Biennial ­Fast Forward international workshop of young curators

IFA Grant- Rave Stipendium- Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel

2005

Goethe Institute Stipendium Munchen

 Gulliver Connect grant, Felix Meritis Foundation- researcher at Moderna Galerjia, Ljubljana

"Close Connection" curatorial program, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam

Curatorial residency- Kunstlerhaus Buchsenhausen, Innsbruck, Austria

2004

SICA Foreign Visitor Program, Grant for curators and art journalists, Amsterdam

Central European University, SUN scholarship, Budapest, Hungary

KulturKontakt Vienna, Curator in residence, Austria