Romanian catalog for Webpage - Flipbook - Page 20
acute observation of material reality and an attentive
observation of some of its most ephemeral elements:
dust, rust, fluff, and soil. The artists question key aspects
of social and economic change along with direct political
action and actual conflict. In their examination of the
material and symbolic remains of ideologies, the series of
works that includes For Solidaritat Und Revolution (n.d.)
and Appointment with History (2007-14) reveals the artists
engaging with a politics of memory. Like archaeologists
or anthropologists, they choose to revisit their history or
transform it through nostalgia. A series of small paintings
reproducing the techniques of nineteenth-century realism,
Appointment with History presents a range of particularly
revealing scenes and incidents, from an anti-capitalist
demonstration in Basel to a queue of people standing
outside a department store during the communist period.
In contrast to looking at the political landscape, several
of the artists in the collection draw inspiration from the
actual landscape of Romania and its architecture. Marius
Bercea has become known for his large-scale paintings
that, while often brightly colored, are laced with dark
undertones. The works depict the uncertainties of life in
Romania shortly after the end of communism. Hope for a
bright new future was often replaced by a reality marked
by banality and the architectural reminders of a past
utopian dream that went awry. Fascinated by the futuristic
Brutalist architecture that was inspired by the space race
during the Cold War, Bercea grew up wondering at these
vast concrete constructions. Nothing dates faster or looks
more outmoded than something that is supposed to be
of the future. Tuesday Afternoon Cinema (2011) is one
such example. The painting’s vast concrete structure and
swimming pool, empty and somehow forlorn, have been
robbed of their purpose and left as monuments to
a different time.
Like Bercea, Michele Bressan documents similar
aspects of the Romanian post-communist reality using
photography and film (as opposed to paint) to capture
his surroundings. His work, such as the Reminder Series
(2007), is intimate and sensitive without being sentimental.
This allows the viewer to empathize with the incidental
specificity within the scenes, all while witnessing the
mechanisms and sometimes the peculiarities of a society
caught in transition.
18
As in Mountain Painting (n.d.), Robert Fekete’s vividlycolored canvases nearly always depict a lone figure
amidst, or looking out over, a romantic landscape. In
terms of this subject matter, there is more than a nod to
German Romanticism. Such art historical references are
enhanced as the artist draws inspiration from secondhand imagery such as the photographs of friends,
postcard landscapes, old newspapers, and film frames.
By cutting his figures out from their original contexts and
pasting them into entirely new surroundings, the paintings
take on a strongly collage-like quality. Coupled with
Fekete’s use of vividly and strongly contrasting colors, this
technique makes for dynamic and apparently spontaneous
paintings that feel joyful and celebratory.
Christian Moldovan’s delicate ink drawings on paper
create a subtle yet evocative trace of the subjects they
depict. An untitled example in the Collection of the Arthur
Taubman Trust suggests either a wooded landscape or
pared down, totem-like forms.
Victor Rӑcӑtӑu also creates sensitively rendered
depictions of the natural world. Be it a nest of eggs or
a fossil, his paintings have an almost reverential quality.
There is a touch of magical realism about Rӑcӑtӑu’s
practice, as if the eggs in Nest (2008) might contain an
otherworldly creature rather than a bird, or the fossil in
Spirala (2008) is perhaps about to unwind. Overarching
everything in these works is the clear impression that
Rӑcӑtӑu has an inherent respect and awe for the wonder
of nature, and wants the viewer to feel this, too.
Pieter Bruegel has been described as bringing a
humanizing spirit to traditional subjects while also seeking
to create new ones. In the same vein, Șerban Savu’s
meticulously rendered paintings, peopled with workers
and “ordinary” folk going about their business, initially
read as tender depictions of everyday life in Romania.
The pastoral landscapes resemble Arcadia, and
the workers are proud and contentedly purposeful.
Nonetheless, all is not what it seems, and a veneer of
fantasy runs in parallel to the one that Savu inhabits.
In the impressive The Polyptych of Work and Leisure (2014),
the central panel — which in a traditional altarpiece would
have depicted Christ — has been replaced by a scene from
a vast car boot sale, an event that has come to replace
