A look at Dan Perjovschi’s long-lasting artistic intervention in the public space in his hometown of Sibiu. Over 12 years of uninterrupted activity, the Horizontal Newspaper has connected its editions with different locations, from the theatre festival in Avignon to documenta fifteen in Kassel, questioning current events and proposing possibilities for a better future in a unique independent public art and, the book argues, educational project. The Horizontal Newspaper is most probably the longest-lasting intervention in the public space in Romania and certainly a unique artistic experiment in the world. The work unfolds on a surface that is roughly 50 meters by four meters. Ironically, the year when the National Theatre Bucharest destroyed Perjovschi’s At the Wall installation was coincidentally the year when he did the first intervention on the street-facing side of the wall. Therefore, the Radu Stanca National Theatre in Sibiu cherished and celebrated what the National Theatre in Bucharest failed to appreciate. The Horizontal Newspaper, the classroom with a single wall, neither discriminates nor closes its eyes to discrimination. Furthermore, as an artistic experiment, it refutes double standards. What Perjovschi delivers to his international audience through the Western art scenes, he also provides to the eyes of anyone who walks along the Coposu Boulevard in Sibiu city. The Horizontal Newspaper has evolved into a “place in time” that neither spares us our biases nor allows us to sink in despair. A fixed point from where Perjovschi has been conveying meaning for over a decade and an active space of freedom, self-determination, solidarity, and coherence.
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