MONTHLY EVALUATIONS (2005-2010)
Ioana Nemes's project Monthly Evaluations goes back to 2001 and is inextricably linked to the events which led to the discovery of her artistic vocation. For Nemes was a professional handball player until an injury put an end to her career and she decided to be an artist. A new world opened to her and to get a perspective on it, she evolved The Wall Project on the dining room wall of the small flat she shared with her mother and twin brother. The wall was divided into two sections, with one side chronicling Nemes's aspirations and unrealized projects while the other chronicled aspirations that had been met and projects that had been realized. Every time a slip was moved from one side to the other, Nemes took a photo and archived it.
In 2005, two things happened that were key to the project: The Wall Project was shown in a gallery, and Nemes moved out of the flat. These events impacted on the project, which came increasingly to be focused around how time might be made visible. Nemes developed a strong interest in the British writer Virginia Woolf's understanding of time and the Swiss psychologist Max Luscher's ideas about colour, and out of this came Monthly Evaluations. Nemes developed a system with five parameters: physical, emotional, intellectual, financial and the luck factor. Since 2005, each day has been evaluated against these parameters; it is allocated a colour and a quotation or a saying before being archived along with all the other days.
When Monthly Evaluations goes on show, Nemes ponders all the other works to be shown in the exhibition and its overarching idea, and subsequently goes through her archive, plucking out a small clutch of days. These are then translated into murals or plastic objects that resemble gigantic funeral stones.
Even though Nemes's starting premise is her own self-realization project, Monthly Evaluations describes a more generic experience which relates to work, ambition, progress and happiness. The project argues for a conception of identity, which, rather than remaining static, is something the individual is continually shaping on the basis of the options and opportunities that present themselves. This is the starting point for Nemes's critical stance vis-à-vis the settings in which she is a player: exhibitions, the wider art scene and the new Europe. - Niels Henriksen
MONTHLY EVALUATIONS ON DISPLAY
2010
Title: Monthly Evaluations_Lost Day, 2010
Exhibition: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?_ group show
Venue: Secession, Vienna
2 July – 29 August 2010
Curator: Elisabeth Bettina Spörr
Title: Monthly Evaluations_Pause Button series, 2010
Exhibition: Comrades of Time (group show)
Pavilion Unicredit, Bucharest
18 Feb - 28 Apr 2010
Artists: Zbynek Baladran (CZ), Grigor Khachatryan (AM), Anna Molska (PL), Ioana Nemes (RO), Skart (SRB), Clemens von Wedemeyer (DE)
Curator: Joanna Soko?owska
2009
Title: Monthly Evaluations_Madame Bovary, 2009
Exhibition: What Keeps Mankind Alive?_Istanbul Biennial XI (group show)
Venue: Feriköy Greek School
12 Sept - 8 Nov 2009
Curators: What, How & for Whom (WHW)
Title: Monthly Evaluations_Vanishing Point
Exhibition: On Joy, Sadness and Desire (group show)
Venue: Smart Project Space, Amsterdam
Curator: Hilde de Bruijne
Title: Monthly Evaluations_Sunday, 8 March 2009
Exhibition: The One Who Knows That Knows, Still Does Not Know How to Know (group show)
Venue: Nova Gallery, Zagreb
8 Apr - 8 May 2009
Artists: Jumana Abboud, Ioana Nemes, Jinoos Tagizadeh
Curators: What, How & for Whom (WHW)
2008
Title: Monthly Evaluations (Time Exposure), 2008
Exhibition:Monthly Evaluations (Time Exposure)_solo show
Venue: Jiri Svestka Gallery, Prague
March 21 - April 5, 2008
Curator: Alina Serban
Title: Monthly Evaluations_Vanishing Point Series, 2008
Exhibition: Alpha 2000_Art prize Europas Zukunft Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig (group show)
5 Apr - 8 June 2008
Artists: Kristina Leko (CRO), Rafal Bujnowski (PL), Jakup Ferri (Kosovo), Ioana Nemes (RO), Kamen Stoyanov (BG)
Curator: Ilina Koralova
Title: Monthly Evaluations_Travel Series, 2008
Exhibition: U-TURN Quadrennial for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (group show)
Venue: Tap E, former Carlsberg brewery
5 Sept - 9 Nov 2008
Curators: Solvej Helweg Ovesen, Charlotte Bagger Brandt and Judith Schwarzbart.
2006
Title: Monthly Evaluations_29.12.2005
Exhibition: Indirect Speech (group Show)
Venue: Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel
Artists: Nevin Aladag, Victor Alimpiev, ?tefan Constantinescu, Ciprian Mure?an, Ioana Nemes, Ovekk Finn, Pablo Pijnappel
Curator: Alina Serban
Title: Monthly Evaluations_One Month: 3 Days, 2006
Exhibition: Temporary Studio: Monthly Evaluations (solo show)
Venue: Orizont gallery, Bucharest
Curator: Simona Nastac
Title: Monthly Evaluations_70 Days, 2006
Exhibition: Bucharest Biennial 2 (group show)
Venue: Faculty of Biology, Bucharest
26 May - 27 June, 2006
Curator: Zsolt Petranyi
2005
Title: Monthly Evaluations_29.02.2005
Exhibition: Motion Parade (group show)
Venue: Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna
8 Nov - 7 Dec 2005
Artists: Matei Bejenaru, Ioana Nemes, Ciprian Muresan, Cristina David, Peter Szabo, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Catalin Rulea
Curator: Alina Serban
2004
Title: Monthly Evaluations / Me (October 2004)_solo show
Venue: Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam
27 Nov 2004 - 8 Jan 2005
Curator: Falke Pisano
