Bureau Doove is excited to have been invited as curator of the 10th-anniversary edition of the nomadic project Bolero, an international art project on the move.
Named after Ravel’s musical composition for its accelerating movement and alluding to a traveling caravan through the desert, the project was initiated in 2010 by the artists Frank JMA Castelyns, Willo Gonnissen, Pierre Mertens and Mulugeta Tafesse as an answer to an ever more global art world. The principles have always been very simple, The project should be able to travel light in a suitcase and be executed with relatively little means. The participating artists are invited to make an intervention on the page of a newspaper of their choice, scan it and send it to the organizers who will print it and show it in a public space and/or a gallery. The art caravan serail arrives, halts temporarily and leaves, always in a different formation. This way over the years a collection of 65 art works has been assembled, sometimes responding to political issues.
Since 2010 Bolero has travelled all over de world. Starting in Addid Ababa, Ethiopia, the homeland of Mulugeta Tafesse, it visited amongst others Vietnam, India, China, Turkey, Belgium and Greece where it was shown in the margins of Documenta 14. Now it will visit for the first time France where it be shown during the CreArt Festival in Rouen in March 2021 in a collaboration with the Centre André-Malraux and ESADHaR Le Havre-Rouen.
Catalogue 2020 – An overview of all the projects so far.
Bolero in Greece, 2017
Contributions for the Greek edition by BachliTzanakou (Irini Bachlitzanaki & Maria Tzanakou) (GR), Maria Ikonomopoulou (GR/NL), Despina Meimaroglou (GR), Els Vanden Meersch (BE), Myrto Xanthopoulou (GR) – see catalogue for details.
Bolero in Cape Verde, 2015 – coverage on Cape Verdian television (in Portugese)
Bureau Doove - creative consultancy 