The exhibition presented in Timișoara, „Green Skin / Affective Interstice”, curated by Diana Marincu (Art Encounters, Timișoara) and Magda Kardasz (Zacheta Project Room, Warsaw), is an „interrogation on the on-going projection of the self on the environment and vice-versa. Highlighting skin, plant tissues or wall textures as active surfaces, the project argues that relationships within the built environment are established through external layers that interact. The various spatial elements cited - arcades, engraved plaster, green lights - symbolise human constructions. The vegetal textures - moss, bark, seeds, fibres - are an attempts to zoom in on the natural world and establish a connection between the micro and macro level. The self is re-centralised as the filter through which surroundings are appropriated. Just as a green screen, the body receives and hosts content, like a terminal, an affective surface that connects external stimuli to personal space. The skin becomes the membrane on which narratives are collected and engraved”, pointed out the curators.

The exhibition presented in Iași, “Green skin / Crevice”, curated by Cristina Moraru, opened on 1st of September at Borderline Art Space. “Lera Kelemen addresses environmental matters, investigating the co-determining relationship between self and environment. The exhibition Green Skin / Crevice, a sequel to the eponymous installation Green Skin / Affective Interstice, brings together a compendium of surfaces – such as marble, soil, skin and tissues – and places them in a layout, mapping out a liminal space for interaction between individual and environment. Surfaces are analysed as areas for mediation and projection where the reciprocal contact between entities is spatialised. Although apparently visual, this projection of layers transcends representation by establishing a relationship between surface and texture. The image becomes a sensorial realm, a field of juxtaposed layers that contain spatial and temporal coordinates. Extractions of tissues and sediments, as well as plaster or concrete overlays, echo the diversity of textural elements found in the environment. Skin/screen/surface meet within the fabric of texture. Each structural object contains its own history embedded in its fabric, which also emerges in the interval that is created between them. The disposition of elements creates a floor plan. The architectural insertions seen from above create a maze-like layout in which the surfaces interact. This highlights once again the relationships between textures and architecture: the abstraction of a building by dividing it into two elements: surface and plan. Surface is what envelopes the mass; the task of the architect is to vitalise the surfaces which clothe these masses (Corbusier). The surface is the fabric that gives an identity to this mass, quoting the video statement ‘texture is identity’ and alluding to architectural elements that become facets of the built environment.” (Lera Kelemen and Cristina Moraru)

Lera’s art practice has an interdisciplinary approach, working with installations and sound interrogating notions of spatiality, corporeality and the built environment.. She graduated with a degree in Fine Arts in 2018 and was the recipient of the Art Encounters Award for her graduation project. She has participated in several national and international residencies and coproductions. Her most recent collaborations include the group exhibition „I feel something, don’t know what” at Zacheta National Gallery (Warsaw) and „Staycation residency” with Catinca Tabacaru Gallery (Bucharest). Her art practice can be followed here -- http://www.lerakelemen.com/.

"While for Kantor and Wagemaker matter becomes painting, Tajiri refers to the spiritual and purified matter through sculpture. Even though formally the three artists have different approaches, it is important to consider their works from this period from an integrated prespective, taking into account that Kantor lived on the other side of Europe, beyond the Iron Curtain, isolated from the West. While Tajiri and Wagemaker have previously exhibited together, Kantor has never been assosiated with the other two. It is vital to highlight Kantor’s position as an Eastern European artist in full synchronicity with artists from the West, adapted to the localproblematic context of that period. Staging such a correspondence is important because in this manner we get the expression of the zeitgeist from an expanded perspective, which evolved from the same principle: the plasticity of matter that combines fragments of subjective and objective reality. Addressing a specific cycle of creation and destruction, potentiality and renewal, they all refer to matter as reality in its raw state", continued the curator in her statement. 

Shinkichi Tajiri complex and paradoxical background combined with the new cultural context provide the diversity of his artwork. "Principles of verticality and materiality are the core of his sculptures. His leitmotifs, the warrior and the knot, are universal themes that explore paradoxes of life" (curator Maria Rus Bojan).

Passing through different stylistic phases, Jaap Wagemaker "held a continuous interest in the natural, primitive and unworked objects of nature. He’s assemblages were of organic and non-organic nature, combining natural shapes and man-made components. Wagemaker’s objects spoke of universal mysteries and spiritual experiences". Tadeusz Kantor’s artworks are "a compilation of contradictions and paradoxes. His art showes strong affinities with trends as art Informel, Lyrical Abstractionism, Action painting and the concept of art as process. All three artists remain rooted in their own personal poetics" (curator Maria Rus Bojan).

The exhibition was organized by Triade Foundation Timișoara, produced by European ArtEast Foundation London, Triade Foundation Timișoara and The Art Museum of Timișoara, with works loaned from Artur Trawinski Collection (Poland) and Matthijs Erdman (The Netherlands).