10 – 27 APRIL 2024
The JD Malat Gallery in London will host a special group exhibition next month featuring the works of seven talented artists from Cluj-Napoca. Scheduled for April 10-27, The Cluj Collective will bring “the vibrant energy and unique perspectives of Romanian art to the heart of London,” gallery founder Jean-David Malat said.
‘The Cluj Collective’ brings together seven Romanian artists, all alumni of the esteemed University of Arts and Design Cluj-Napoca in north-western Romania, a pioneer in visual arts in the region. United by their shared educational background and passion for figurative painting, these artists bring with them a wide range of influences, experiences, and perspectives. Each artwork invites viewers on a journey through the complexities of the human experience; exploring the themes of identity, nature, freedom, power, spirituality and reality, inspired by the distinct culture of Cluj-Napoca.
A group exhibition featuring the work of artists based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Marcel Rusu, Oana Fărcaș, Dragoș Bădiță, Dan Măciucă, Cătălin Tăvală, Cristian Lapusan, Botond Gagyi
It has been eighteen years since the esteemed curator and art historian Jane Neal curated Cluj Connection, an exhibition credited for identifying Cluj as a bonafide art movement characterised by serious work ethic, a dark sombre visual language and dry humour. Shortly after, the art world anointed a cohort of Romanian artists, such as the now familiar names Victor Man and Adrian Ghenie, whose works have been praised for their vigorous and prodigious take on haunting and historical subjects. One of the most exciting enigmas of recent years is how and why their art grandiosely took the art market, and a cohort of leading curators and collectors by storm? Growing up in the aftermath of the Romanian Revolution in 1989 and characterised by life in Post-Communist Romania, these artists – also referred to as the Cluj School – were celebrated for their evolving styles which resonated on an international scale without renouncing their own regional and historical contexts. The artists presented in JD Malat Gallery’s latest group exhibition are similarly bound by the historical context of their generation. Aptly titled The Cluj Collective, this group of seven artists are indeed a collective born out of the historical Transylvanian capital of North-Western Romania, whose diverse painterly styles demonstrate the evolving thread of figurative painting inspired by the distinct culture of Cluj, and it’s beautiful to witness.
United by their educational background, artists Dragoș Bădiță (b.1987), Oana Fărcaș (b.1981), Botond Gagyi (b.1992), Cristian Lapusan (b.1976), Dan Maciuca (b.1979), Marcel Rusu (b. 1989) and Cătălin Tăvală (b. 1996) all graduated from the esteemed University of Arts and Design Cluj-Napoca, with an intense and critical focus on narrative and figurative painting. The paintings in this exhibition are about story telling. Like an Aesop Fable they are fictitious, useful to life and true to nature.
Each painting has a calm yet incredibly tense space where many ontological questions can be asked. Cătălin Tăvală’s AEROB VS ANAREOB (2023) shows a naturalistic portrayal of a small bird swiftly swooping from left to right above a sturdy and weighty bull facing the opposite direction. The swift mobility and lightness of this little bird mocks the heavy bull and its stagnancy, or could this be an allegory of the safety of stability, that slow and steady wins the race? Does it stand for social disparity, and inherent challenges of the contemporary world? Or perhaps it is reflective of the imposing presence of history even amidst swift changes of social tumult. In the same vein as an Aesop Fable, Tăvală allows viewers to revel in beauty or discomfort of opposing states of being that transcend the post-communist life of Romania into our shared collective consciousness.
This interplay of contrived dream-like visions with a realist approach and ironic, humorous titles has a hard-hitting effect; it presents an intermingling of varying artistic concerns wavering between the solemn and the jocular at the very heart of the historical background of Cluj itself. Up until Romania’s break from the dictatorial rule of Nicolae Ceasusecu in 1989, the art of the period had been categorised by two camps; neo-socialist realist works and more emancipatory subjects resembling Western Modernism. The years which ensued were marked by a series of changes, from strong nationalist leadership to Romania’s join with the European Union in 2007, as well as a renewed interest in figurative painting following the influx of new mass media, mobilisation, and freer movement of Romanian citizens.
Several of the artists in this exhibition reconfigure their personal memories of post-communist Romania through their subversions of art historical narratives, and references to film stills and mass media imagery. The sombre and dark compositions in Botond Gagyi’s work resemble the beauty of film noir, where dark silhouetted figures lurk in states of apparition, making us consider the duality of the divine and foreboding dimensions of our contemporary life. Dan Maciuca presents the convergence of well-known religious stories and art historical themes such as The Annunciation, after Fra Angelico (2022), through his virtuosic brushwork and impastoed canvases which seek to obscure and challenge traditional readings of symbolism and history painting in a contemporary context. Dragoș Bădiță similarly surveys and subverts historical narratives and tropes of biblical art in his paintings Mountain of Tears (2024) and Tending to Plants (2024), unearthing feelings of vulnerability, fragility, as well as the sublimity of nature.
Having produced paintings between the years of 2018 and 2024, the artists also offer a contemporary lens to consider human life beyond the complex historical context of Cluj. The corporeal reality of the figures in Cristian Lapusan’s dark, urban settings symbolise vulnerable contemplations of the past and unexplored aspirations for the future. The materialistic and mass media cultures of urban life are explored in Oana Fărcaș’ paintings, depicting well-dressed figures staged within dreamlike surroundings address themes pertaining to facets of female identity and femininity. Marcel Rusu’s work depicts scenes ranging from personal mundane moments such as vacations at the Black Sea to collective memories like the emergence of the consumer society in the late 1990s following the drastic political and economic shifts, as well as recent events such as the war in Ukraine. Whilst a bold reckoning with the transformative events of history, Rusu’s work also harnesses hopeful notions of a utopian future, as reflected in his vibrant hyperreal painting The Fountain of Youth (2024), glowing with the new hybrid reality that is at the centre of Eastern European contemporary culture.
All seven artists in this exhibition have a deep intellectual approach to their subjects and themes. Their serious work ethic and dedication to their academic studies during their time at the University of Arts and Design Cluj-Napoca, not only results in technically brilliant paintings, but also images that resonate with different levels of presentation, engaging with cinematic styles and the dreamlike, surreal tendencies of the subconscious mind. Whilst many of the painters in this exhibition employ a realistic portrayal of their subjects, they seem to imbue their work with a feeling and ambience without explicitly telling you what that is. This exhibition is packed with double-entendres that revel in their ambiguity, casting viewers in the role of not just an onlooker, but an active participant in the unfolding of the histories and contemporary narratives at play in these paintings born out of Cluj.
Whether or not the artists in this exhibition are quick in their commercial ascent like their earlier contemporaries, it is completely clear that this collective of painters is a symbolic reminder that Cluj is a revelatory bedrock for new artistic talent which speaks to the collective imagination on an international scale. The whimsical and emancipatory artworks in this exhibition probe the depths of our conscious and subconscious minds, prompting viewers to contemplate much wider historical and political shifts as well as ontological questions that expand beyond Romania, underlining precisely why and how the Cluj School continues to fascinate global audiences today.
Words by Annie Pereira
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