Oana Farcas, Adrian Ghenie, Victor Man, Ana Maria Micu, Catalin Petrisor, Victor Racatau, Serban Savu
Curator: Maria Rus Bojan
Twenty years after the fall of communism in Romania, contemporary art still filters and express the deep trauma through which, for more than 50 years, Romanian nation went through.Despite the huge positive transformations that followed naturally after 1989, paradoxically, the Romanian communist past is still very present, maybe even too present and too oppressing for the contemporary times.
What contemporary Romanian art, literature and cinema express, is in fact the portrait of the deep tensions between the old and the new society, the ruptures between history and memory and the impossibility to cope with such an inheritance. Especially the figurative painting made by the youngest generations of artists- represents these tensions and paradoxes, subjectively recording both the disintegration and the reconstruction process in various registers of expression.
‘‘Fast Forward’’, the motto of the pioneers from Communist times- (in Romanian- Tot inainte) became now the reality of the youngest generation: everything have rapidly changed and moved forward, and new horizons and opportunities opened up for them like never before. This generation, which has grown up after the Romanian Revolution, is in fact pioneering the real change within the Romanian society. This is the reason why the actual return to the figurative painting should be perceived as a new statement, as a gesture of exorcism and as a subjective articulation of a new mood and poetic approach.
The present selection focuses on artists that belong to this new wave of figuration. Around major figures of painters such as Victor Man, Adrian Ghenie, Serban Savu and Victor Racatau a new generation of artists with a new identity- has developed and rapidly penetrated the international art world, popularizing the new feeling that is recurrent in the Romanian art now. Even each artist has his own strong identity, their works have in common this need to record the change and morally condemn the past.These works should be perceived not only as a new archaeology of the present, but especially as a conundrum, a riddle without a predictable answer. As Ciprian Mihali, one of the young philosophers asserted ‘‘there where the distortions of the past are too strong, the ruptures and discontinuities of the present are harder to be understood than the revolutions.’’
The exhibition display both new works and outstanding pieces from Dutch and Flemish private collections and it aims to give an overview on the exceptional case of Cluj. Capital of the historical region of Transylvania, this city has the most renowned Art University in Romania and hosts at the moment an exceptionally active art scene.
The curator of the exhibition wishes to dedicate this exhibition to the memory of Lucian Matis, Romanian artist shot dead in Cluj in front of the Art University in 21 December 1989.
Exhibition realized on the occasion of the launching of C-Projects, a new space dedicated to the promotion of contemporary art initiated by the gallery owner Melle Hendrikse and the curator Maria Rus Bojan.
Exhibition realized in collaboration with the Romanian Embassy in The Hague . With the kind support of the following collections: Haenen family, Hendrikse family and Paul van Sluijs.
Special thanks to Ivan Gallery Bucharest.
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