PAVILION UNICREDIT- center of contemporary art and culture
Sos. N. Titulescu no. 1
Tuesday - Sunday: 12.00 - 19.00



PAVILION UNICREDIT- center of contemporary art and culture, is located in Victoria Square in a space that became a banking center in 1993 and that has remained so for the last 15 years. The actual building of the block started during the years of the communist regime and it was finished five years after the fall of the communism. The “hruschiovichi“ from the center of Bucharest have witnessed the changes of a Stalinist society into a capitalist society, strongly affected both politically and socially. BB4 uses this space for the implicit messages it conveys, for its location (right across the center of the executive power – the Romanian Government) and, moreover, for its history, suddenly forgotten. A space without a special history, of interrupted history, revolutionary delays, of knowledge and interest in society, city and community.

PU is a work-in-progress independent space, a space for the production and research in the fields of audiovisual, discursive and performative. It is a space for critical thinking, and it promotes a socio-politically involved understanding of art and cultural institutions.

Nevertheless, the basic function of the space will remain concretization.

PAVILION UNICREDIT, Centre for Visual Introspection and ParadisGaraj are one of the few independent entities operating in the Bucharest contemporary art scene. By using them as venues, BB4 wishes to encourage the emergence of new spaces and the development of an active cultural scene in Bucharest.

Image: courtesy of PAVILION UNICREDIT, photo by Ioana Nitu

THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH
8 Spiru Haret Street
Tuesday - Sunday: 12.00 - 19.00



The Institute of Political Research was created in 1999, 10 years after the revolution, by transforming the Centre for Political Research, founded in 1995 as the research core of the Faculty of Political Science of Bucharest University. Ten years after the institutionalization of the research activity, the Institute remains one of few platforms of debate and analysis of the Romanian political environment from an academic perspective, through encouraging social and economical approaches involved in the political activity.

By intervening within the Institute of Political Research, BUCHAREST BIENNALE 4 suggests and inserts new means of investigation, discussion and criticism of the socio-political context.

PARADIS GARAJ
20 Batistei Street
Tuesday - Sunday: 12.00 - 19.00



Founded by Claudiu Cobilanschi and Ștefan Tiron, ParadisGaraj, the only artist-run space of Bucharest, is a space of self-education, which accesses and engages the audience through an open invitation towards debate and dialogue.

Using a garage in the centre of Bucharest, despite its small space, ParadisGaraj has become an active space of cultural production and distribution, bringing a considerable contribution to the local scene.

PAVILION UNICREDIT, Centre for Visual Introspection and ParadisGaraj are one of the few independent entities operating in the Bucharest contemporary art scene. By using them as venues, BB4 wishes to encourage the emergence of new spaces and the development of an active cultural scene in Bucharest.

CENTRE FOR VISUAL INTROSPECTION
16 Biserica Enei Street
Tuesday - Sunday: 12.00 - 19.00



Centre for Visual Introspection is an independent platform generated by artists Anca Benera, Arnold Estefan, Catalin Rulea and art historian Alina Serban. Reacting critically to the restrictive institutional frameworks present within the Romanian cultural sphere, Centre for Visual Introspection was conceived as an independent centre for promoting the artistic production at the borders of cultural theory, research, architecture, design and sound experiment. The term “introspection” positions CIV as an observing agency whose main focus is to develop specific models of interlinking the social space with the art space.

Centre for Visual Introspection is a process-based collaborative project engaged in an ongoing survey upon the condition of individual within the sphere of arts and politics. Thus, CIV functions as a mobile and mediating structure connected to community life, which assumes the task of articulating a new cultural pedagogy that would shape differently the discursive space shared by both cultural producers and their audiences.

PAVILION UNICREDIT, Centre for Visual Introspection and ParadisGaraj are one of the few independent entities operating in the Bucharest contemporary art scene. By using them as venues, BB4 wishes to encourage the emergence of new spaces and the development of an active cultural scene in Bucharest.

Image: courtesy of the Centre for Visual Introspection

GEOLOGY MUSEUM
Sos. Kiseleff no. 2
Tuesday - Sunday: 10.00 - 17.00



Set up in the historical building of the Romanian Geological Institute (1906), the National Geological Museum was opened for public in 1990. The interesting aspects of this space range from both, the perspective of the originality of the collections setting and from the perspective of the public that enters the museum and the historical-emotional charged atmosphere.

Storing an archive of over 80 000 samples of minerals, rocks and fossils, the museum is organized as a book, illustrating the main domains of geology. Carol the Ist, prince of German origin brought to rule Romania through the decision of the Parliament in 1866, is considered founder of modern Romania, is also the founder of the Geological Museum. The regulation signed by the monarch foresaw: "mineral and rock collections of our country will be organized, which, with the approval of the director, will be visited and consulted by the public".

The current building, finished in 1908, following the project of the famous architect Victor Stefanescu, in a neo-brancovenesc style, was declared an architectonical monument. It is situated on the main artery of Bucharest, Sos. Kiseleff nr. 2, continuing itself in Victoriei Boulevard, which is today the major boulevard of Romania's capital city.

The boulevard on which the National Geological Museum is located, is the area for promenades and relaxation of Bucharest, continuing itself in Victoriei Boulevard, shopping area, representative for the radical capitalism that modified the aspect of Bucharest.