Recently, artist Frank Serge Lehmann presented a solo show in Brașov, an exhibition called “Between Two Worlds. The Privilege of Free Representation”, curated by Alexandra Ilnițchi-Ardelean. That was a premiere in Brașov and in Romania, pointed out the curator.

“Art is a necessity. Creating art stands for some artists right at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid. Others have found their vocation in other professions; in such cases, art rises at the top of their needs as a distinct form of self-fulfillment. Frank Serge Lehmann belongs to the latter category.

The idea behind a work of art is an essential component of conceptual art, alongside contemporary issues and the philosophy of art. This creative approach is sustained by thorough research, documentation and the continuous exchange of ideas between individuals. Aesthetics and craftsmanship are not essential parts of the final work, although Lehmann's works of art form a coherent ensemble. Concepts such as the ephemerality of art, the condition of the artist, the status of art for the individual and then within the community, censorship, autonomy – these are all challenged, but there’s no universal answer and the artist refrains from providing it”, says the curator.

“Lehmann's creative process integrates the act of collecting: quotes, ready-made objects, automatic machines or metal pieces of furniture. These may spark revelations that lead to works of art. He gives them new narrative layers. Machines dating from the 1950s and 1960s are brought into the present-day through interventions inspired by the world of electronics, digital culture and globalized communications, making Lehmann a man of his time.

The exhibition of the artist Frank Serge Lehmann is a welcome premiere in Brașov and in Romania. His artworks are highly suggestive in terms of the dialogue they instigate regarding the status of artists and of the arts. The concepts he works with give us a lot to ponder upon and they represent an anchor in the civilized and developed society we are building, that is a society in which artistic creation is an integral part”. (Alexandra Ilnițchi-Ardelean)

The exhibited artworks, explained by the curator:

ARS INFINITA - 2016, Installation

The artist is keen on working with historically charged objects, giving his works an additional dimension, which is intrinsic to the materials he uses.

ONE-DOLLAR ART - 2017, Floor installation

The one-dollar works are contained in six identical delivery boxes from the 1920s and 1930s. Owing to the blackened dark wood and the sturdy iron fittings, the boxes have an almost eerie quality about them. What were they used for? What was transported in these boxes? Maybe ancient treasures, or forbidden contraband hidden by smugglers?

ART & ETERNITY - 2017, Floor installation, 3 pinball machines

Is art for all eternity? Is this wishful thinking or is it a reality?

ARTIST & ENLIGHTENMENT - 2017, Installation

Do artists provide enlightenment by virtue of their ability to see? Or are they lighting technicians, knowing precisely where to put the spotlight?

VOICE OF ART - 2017, Installation

The title of the installation is also an ironic reference to a contemporary phenomenon, related to the desire to communicate and the desire to be the center of attention: the numerous casting shows around the globe, such as The Voice of Germany, in which vocal talents sometimes end up being ridiculed and ruthlessly humiliated in the name of mass entertainment. Do both desires serve as a lure, presenting an illusory freedom, only to punish whoever takes the bait?

ART & FREEDOM - 2017, Installation

The installation can symbolize Lehmann’s desire to express himself as an artist, free from social, political, monetary and economic constraints. Are all artists in the same position? Thoughts cannot be locked up. Artworks are visualized thoughts. Art doesn’t set you free; art IS free.

JOY OF ART - 2017, Installation

Is the artist taking a creative break? Or is he lacking inspiration? Has he given up or is he about to return?

Albert Kaan’s latest art project was recently presented at Atelier 35, Bucharest. “A liminal space” is known as both a place and a state, a condition of transitioning, a gap in which one's shape or identity is indefinite, the curatorial team informs us. “You may think of it as a crossing point, a state of existence between certainties, between forms and realities; the sensation of in-betweenness. Do we define such a state and the elements within it by what was, what is to be, or by the mere condition of (a) changeover?

The exhibition gathers a series of works that illustrate his journey, that talk about transience in that kind of liminal space, where the forms embodied may appear or leave a trace of their presence, but in the end, none remain”, points out curator Monica Danilă in her statement.

MNAC Bucharest - 8.12.2022-16.04.2023

The exhibition “Dorina Horătău. Landscape Reconstructions”, curated by Călin Dan, part of MNAC Winter Opening 2022, can still be visited in the Marble Hall on the ground floor of the museum until April 16, 2023. We stand before a great project that inevitably leads us to think about ephemerality, the flow of time and the way matter is consumed.

“What happens to the leaves after they dry up and fall off trees? We don't ask that question anymore, because we're confident we know the answer. Dorina Hotărău has discovered a new one. And another circuit of leaves in nature. Thus, inside the museum, a surprisingly deep indoor forest has been created.

Dorina Horătău diligently collected dry leaves from the MNAC grove. She covered the floor of the Marble Hall with them. She “recomposed” the trees outside in the form of metal columns. She amplified the effect on the viewer with the rhythmic sounds of an axe that seems to break both wood and silence. The visitor is left only to discover this organic site, along with the artful circuit of matter”, the curatorial team informs.

“The form and forestry content of a perimeter of the grove in front of MNAC are brought in an abstracted form into the interior space of the building, in the Marble Hall. Each built trunk/container from the inside contains leaves collected from under the “corresponding” tree in the natural environment outside. This site-specific proposal relies on a sensorial experience based on the strong contradiction between the delimited space and its content, with the intention of creating an active, objective reality in which artistic intervention creates a place of introspection, questioning and reflection”, pointed out the artist.

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The curatorial team - Călin Dan, Sandra Demetrescu, Alexandru Oberländer-Târnoveanu;

Production - Ionuț Emilian Petcu, Teodor Horătău, Gheorghe Olteanu, Răzvan Mihalachi, Mihai Toma, Ionuț Marin;

Special thanks to Călin Diaconu, Raisa & Nona Beicu, Adrian Ciocanea, Daniel Costianu, Cristian Niculescu, Daniel Constantinescu, Mihaela Ghiță, Victor Velculescu, Daliana Păcuraru, Cătălin Dârzu, Dan Buzan;

Photopraphy - Serioja Bocsok / MNAC Bucharest;

MNAC pages - https://www.mnac.ro/event/1080/DORINA%20HOR%C4%82T%C4%82U.%20RECONSTRUC%C8%9AIE%20DE%20PEISAJ

November 8-30, 2022 / at the GreenHouse, St. Atanasie Street no. 25, Iasi 

“Between Two Wars” is a project that presents 8 new artistic productions by artists established and active in Eastern Europe.

The initiative to bring these works together in a group exhibition in Iasi is based on the orientation of the organizer towards local artists in a regional framework (Eastern Romania, Czech Republic, Republic of Moldova) through the production of contemporary art organically realized for this exhibition. The project was named after the film “Between Two Wars” by filmmaker Harun Farocki, completed in 1978.

"The works are conceptually indirectly aiming at the conflict that recently started on Romania's border, and rather show different mechanisms of perception on it, but also aspects of the political and economic consequences in countries located in the proximity of the war, as felt by the artists in the places where they live and activate.

The exhibition thus outlines an artistic production made in a period defined by a constant expectative, in an attempt to responsibly and reflexively integrate current global issues, and not to deeply destabilize existing local cultural structures and efforts to gain a better understanding of the situation we are in", we learn from curator Delia Bulgaru.

The exhibition, co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration, is part of the cultural project BETWEEN TWO WARS, organized by satelit between August and November 2022.

Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu (RO): Rendered Hopeless, 2022

Florin Bobu (RO): BIИE AȚI VEИIT!, 2022

Elena Chirila (MD): The war beyond my social media feeds: near or far?, 2022

Andreea Cioară (RO): unwelcome, 2022

Cezar Lăzărescu (RO): Memories, 2022

Andrei Timofte (RO): Vibrant Democracies: From passion to profit, 2022

Smaranda Ursuleanu (RO): alternative drawings, 2022

Viktor Vejvoda (CZ): Pohlednice z minulosti a budoucnosti / Postcards from past and future, 2022

The exhibition presents six multimedia artistic productions, made by young artists who practice, as a theoretical background, the language of investigative aesthetics. Ukrainian artist Ciprian Tokar's artistic research focuses on the interference between personal and collective memory of traumatic historical events such as the Maidan Revolution and Russia's brutal attack on Ukraine. His artistic practice is associated with the notion of "expanded painting", "2.0" or "networked" developed by the American art historian David Joselit. By this notion, painting is a visual construct that is based on images extracted from visual communication through mass media and social media.

From another perspective, the artistic works proposed by ALB question the image in its capacity as a communication code. In the current context, where the image proliferates in a deeply virtualized social environment, her artistic practice is a response to this environment, being categorized as antimimetic and non-aesthetic. The refusal to create defined visual representations, and implicitly, the refusal to describe or comment on a supposed reality is accompanied by the challenge of abstraction as a process of mental reduction and essentialization of representation.

The works proposed by Lucian Bran use the analogical image to show how information is interpreted by different types of individuals according to their belief systems. From literary interpretations of the Bible that say the earth is 6000 years old to geological truths such as, the force of gravity tends to flatten the earth's surface over time, etc.

Hamburg-based Russian artist Elizaveta Ostapenko's research focuses on the communicative character of the image. In her case, the production of the image is the result of a deconstructive process, which involves canceling the traditional semiotic functions used in representation. His artistic practice develops a narrative about the image using personal experiences, activities and everyday experiences, inspired by the immediate reality induced by the visual manipulations of mass culture. In contrast, Ana Maria Micu restricted her flow of images to a source that comes from the environment of her own home. The artist exclusively paints scenes from her own apartment, images taken during various artistic endeavors. The painting proposed by the artist represents an unlimited visual examination, a multifaceted presentation of the self.

Sara Muscalu's artistic practice is located at the intersection between painting and photography. It explores the extension and hybridization of the two media, as well as the specificity of these media in relation to their ability to objectively communicate information; in the present case, the information is about the process of erosion and disappearance of public spaces over time, taking as benchmarks the post-industrial condition of Romanian society and the theme of work.

"Unlimited Visuality" is a cultural project co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.

Nova Pantalla is the first exhibition dedicated to the art of videogames in Catalonia. Its aim is to reach both video game fans and people who do not know about them. For this reason, the exhibition has an interactive character, with immersive content and games so that everyone can participate.

“Nova Pantalla” wants to promote the video game as a cultural product of artistic interest, therefore, an immersive video created expressly for the occasion is projected in the space, a piece of work that introduces visitors into video games.

Adrian Grecu is a pioneer in combining traditional media with augmented and virtual reality. The artist started looking for the visual effects of joining real objects with those digitally modeled in 3D since the end of the 90s. His works have won awards and been presented at international exhibitions in London, Seoul, Koga, Sint Niklaas, Gliwicze, Kanagawa, Cheju, Venice.

"The exhibition brought together some of the most important landmarks of the artistic production of Adrian Grecu, one of the most relevant artists active in the sphere of new technologies in Romania. Adrian Grecu is a veteran of the use of digital media and their expressive and conceptual potential.

The RetroPerspectiva project is not only a recuperative exercise - although the retrospective dimension remains obvious, being so necessary in the case of a mature artist with a vast activity - but it also wants and succeeds in being a manifesto of our way of relating to the current world. It's a speech about the utopias and dystopias still present in the collective mind, it's a comment on the idea of power, both political power and its abuses, as well as cutting-edge artistic practices and tools, more precisely their power of visualization and conceptualization, suggested by the defiantly waved flag in the title of the exhibition and which proudly bears the Power symbol specific to electronic instruments," pointed out curator Horea Avram.

"And, like any manifesto, this exhibition has programmatic value: naturally including previous digital works, in two-dimensional format, graphic or pictorial, the artist fertilely speculates in the recent works the direct, moving encounter between the digital and the real facilitated by the use of Augmented Reality. RetroPerspective. A digital manifesto is an exhibition that constitutes itself as a real manifesto of the era in which we live and of our (always) extended experience of this world, one that stands more and more under the sign of the digital".

Adrian Grecu was born in Cluj-Napoca in 1969, he graduated from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, but also from the Faculty of Physics of Babeș-Bolyai University. He had personal exhibitions in Romania, in Cluj and Bucharest and in the USA. He participated with works in various international graphics festivals in Poland, Japan, Korea, Belgium.

The purpose of the project revolved around the need to preserve crafts and promote traditional culture through contemporary art, this project putting a local craft in the foreground.

"The charcoal makers from Lupeni (Farkaslaka) Harghita county have a tradition of over three centuries. Generations have taken care of this craft, by which they produce mangal - charcoal from burnt hardwood. Thick wooden branches are cut and built into huge cones, called bushes, then covered with sand and earth, after which a smoldering, flameless burn takes place in the absence of oxygen for nearly two weeks. As a result of this burning, the carbonization of the wood occurs.

Finally, the coal thus obtained is crushed, packed in paper bags and sold. The beneficiaries are all of us, when we light these coals on the grills, to fry various goodies. Recently, technology has been imposed in this field as well, with wood charcoal being obtained in special furnaces. There are only a few genuine charcoal burners left in the area who still practice this craft. Like other jobs, this risks being forgotten too. Within this camp, we set out to value of charcoal in the most noble way possible, namely to be used in drawing and other artistic techniques by contemporary artists. Thus, the work of art obtained with a few grams of coal can be worth as much as the equivalent of tens of kilograms of coal. Another approach to the theme was the representation of charring through other artistic techniques. So - with or without coal, but about coaling - it became the motto of the camp...", said Lucian Muntean, camp coordinator.

At the first edition of the project, a group of 6 artists were invited to take part in "a creative camp where they documented the activity of the coal miners, visited the cultural and historical sites in the area, then created a series of contemporary art works, using locally produced coal as a working material. During the creation period, as well as at the end of the camp, there were demonstration workshops attended by children from the community or those interested. The works of art were later exhibited in Lupeni, but also in itinerant exhibitions around the country, which are to be scheduled", Lucian Muntean also conveyed.

The project was attended by: Botár László (Miercurea Ciuc), Lucian Muntean (Bucharest), Justinian Scarlătescu (Bucharest), Marius Stanciu (Bucharest), Radu Șerban (Cluj-Napoca), Aurel Tar (Bucharest). Guest artist Florin Gherasim (Cluj-Napoca)

Organizers of the exhibition: Harghita County Council, Harghita County Cultural Center, Harghita County Council Gallery and Cultura Nostra Association.

The graphic exhibition in question opened at the end of January as a first project of a new gallery in Brașov, Romania - The Sphere / LAB;ORATORIUM, a space that aims to promote contemporary arts and culture, emerging artists and mid-career artists. The exhibition remains open until February 28th.

Artist Ema Voinescu, a graduate of the National University of Arts, Graphics Department, returns with a new exhibition project, which she worked on together with Alexandra Ardelean, independent curator. The artist exhibited in Brașov before, and her activity includes numerous participations in group exhibitions, both in Romania and abroad.

Her mostly figurative art translates into order and minimalism, and her exhibition “Subtitles for Silence. Graphic diary” brings to the public's attention a set of new works that express daily introspections.

”The concept of the typical sketchbook from the artists' arsenal was transformed by the artist into a collection of snapshots rendered on individual pages, forming groupings inside the exhibition space. The drawings can be seen as independent works, but in the same way they are free to associate with each other, to compose dynamic, temporary groups. Each new exposure can bring new interpretations to the same images. Like a real diary, the topics covered show the asymmetry of human life: happiness is intertwined with doubts, humor is sprinkled with moments of clarity, and witty wordplay is combined with decisive events.

The artist pays special attention to the details, thus facilitating the perception of the big picture. Introverted, she does not reveal the whole story, but through lines, human figures, words and shapes she manages to easily reproduce sketched experiences which the viewer is already familiar with. The drawings are sometimes accompanied by words, proof of inspiration from Japanese art, and they contribute to the interpretation of the compositions. Humorous, absurd or of a shocking realism, Ema Voinescu draws attention to some details and emotional elements, that can easily be omitted. Insightful, she becomes aware of them, graphically renders them, and passes on the interest to the viewer. Introspection is, therefore, inevitable “, pointed out the curator.