A Matter of Contemplation and Discontent

A Matter of Contemplation and Discontent

Art in Romania, 1980s-1990s | 1F Galleries | 22 September – 19 November 2016 | Supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute

Artists: Alexandru Antik, Sándor Bartha, Geta Brătescu, Teodor Graur, Ion Grigorescu, Peter Jacobi, Dan Mihaltianu, Dan Perjovschi, Lia Perjovschi, Mircea Stănescu, Sorin Vreme  Curator: Anca Verona Mihuleţ

The exhibition Matter of Contemplation and Discontent presents a selection of influential artists from Romania, consisting of unique pieces of art created between the 1980s and the 1990s in various media – from drawing to photography and video. Other works have been produced for the current exhibition, based on archival documents and photographs. Its aim in the Vargas Museum is to place certain artistic discourses in a different context, using deconstruction, repetition, memory and parallel compositions as curatorial methods. However, the selection of works also draws a portrait of Romania during the period of transition from communism to democracy, trying to determine the representations of the political, but rather playfully, and avoiding a compact presentation.

Alexandru Antik presents a selection of short films and animations created over a ten-year period, allowing the viewer to observe the protagonists of his performances. He is preoccupied with identity, the relation with the body and the nature surrounding him. Antik’s display is accompanied by a lecture-performance, where he comments on the archival material he has processed from the 1980s onwards.

Sándor Bartha’s video shows the artist on a big monitor, breathing in silence. An inflated plastic bag, tied to the window, imitates the movements of his breathing. Created at the beginning of the 1990s, this work describes the artist’s passivity towards the political changes that Romania was undergoing.

The series of drawings produced by Mircea Stănescu and Sorin Vreme at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s suggests the two artists’ responses to the political demons and to the uncertainty that was so overwhelming in the days preceding the fall of communism, as well as later on, in the period of transition.

Ion Grigorescu contributes an intriguing complex of photographs he took in1991 and 1994, during the period in which Bucharest was experiencing a paradoxical combination between reconstruction and demolition.

Revisiting history with the instruments of contemporary thinking allows us to research other layers of the subject matter. In this context, the exhibition integrates two paintings realized by Brenda Fajardo, focused on disruptive episodes from the history of the Philippines.

This exhibition is supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute. Special acknowledgment is extended to Ortansa Ghindea.

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