Romanian catalog for Webpage - Flipbook - Page 23
A strong relationship with art history distinguishes the
work of Victor Man. One of the most enigmatic of all the
Romanian artists, he looks to early Sienese and Italian
Renaissance painting for inspiration, along with continuing
his long-held dialogue with the painters Johannes Vermeer,
Édouard Manet, and Balthus. Often working in dark tones
achieved by using a Claude glass (or “black mirror”), Man
creates a nocturnal atmosphere that lends a certain
religiosity to his work. Many of Man’s subjects resemble
icon-like images, and the artist achieves a disquieting
stillness born from painstakingly slow work in a studio
filled with north light. The first of the Cluj painters to break
onto the international art scene, Man was also the first
artist to be exhibited in Galeria Plan B, founded by Mihai
Pop and Adrian Ghenie in 2005. He has achieved great
worldwide recognition for his distinctive paintings, and
conspicuously influenced the development of European
figurative painting in particular.
Lia Perjovschi is a highly respected conceptual artist
committed to producing opportunities for intellectual
exchange. She oversees The Contemporary Art Archive/
Centre for Art Analysis, which she founded in 1985, and KM
(Knowledge Museum), an interdisciplinary research project
established and active since 1999. Perjovschi’s practice
encompasses performance, video, installation, drawing,
text-based work, and site-specific installations of objects,
facts, diagrams, mind maps, and timelines.
Always thought-provoking, and often groundbreaking, she
was one of the first artists in Romania to work with video
in performance. Perjovschi’s tense and powerful film The
Magic of the Gesture/Laces (Discreet Communications)
from 1989 is eerily timely and reads as a metaphor for the
often complex and tangled restrictions that bound the
Romanian people under the Ceaușescu regime. The artist
filmed herself winding laces around the limbs of her fellow
students and recorded the ensuing results as they became
increasingly frustrated and attempted to move or break
apart from the group. The film is also a poignant reminder
of how emotions intensify when people have to wait. It
took more than ten hours longer than expected for the
video camera to arrive in Bucharest for the performance,
highlighting yet another challenge under communism — the
restriction of the movement of goods. Perjovschi’s legacy
is evident not only from her own practice, but also in the
themes and approaches adopted by artists from successive
generations who have followed her lead both in content
and in their attempts to further intellectual exchange.
Radu Oreian has long been preoccupied with the myths
and stories that shape our society and understanding
of humanity. The artist draws inspiration from sources
as diverse as Persian and Indian miniatures, Chinese
mythology, the Rosetta Stone, and ancient Greece.
Oreian’s wall piece titled The Last Agora (2019) is the
largest work in the Collection of the Arthur Taubman Trust.
The debates between philosophers in ancient Greece
have shaped human thought, art, and social and political
systems until the present day. For Oreian, paintings are
a rich ground where historical events, myths, and ancient
images can meld with contemporary surroundings. The
artist uses an extensive canvas to imagine how such a
gathering place would look today, taking eleven ancient
figures and transporting them into the present. To combat
the risk of boredom for these assembled guests, Oreian
depicts the figures playing the games he remembers from
his own childhood. The result is men leapfrogging and
clambering over each other until it is virtually impossible
to distinguish one body from another. Oreian himself
likens the effect to a Beckett play where everything feels
familiar, yet it’s impossible to determine exactly why.
Radu Oreian,
The Last Agora
(detail), 2019,
illustrated page 101
The Last Agora feels like an appropriate work to end a
discussion about the Collection of the Arthur Taubman
Trust, co-curated by Nick and Jenny Taubman. Writing
about these artists, researching their practices, noting
the caliber of their work, and surveying the recognition
they have been afforded is a reminder of how unique this
collection is — and how important. It is also a reminder
of the importance of appreciation — of observing and
recognizing excellence in others — even, or perhaps
especially, if it involves looking anew and beyond.
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