Ami
Barak

Communism never happened

Charim Gallery, Vienna May-June 2011

Ciprian Mureșan, Communism Never Happened, 2006

Titled after a work by Ciprian Mureșan, the proposed exhibition presents a selection of Romanian artists from the contemporary scene after the regime change. The piece involves a provocatively revisionist trend present in all societies rewriting history in terms of partisan interests. But exactly the opposite is shown in this exhibition: all works are required to deal with the communist past of their country. The artists are affected by the syndrome and yet some were barely teenagers when the change occurred. The shadow of the dictatorship with its avatars and clichés, its absurdities, its lifestyle and rigidities, its Kafkaesque atmosphere and permanent lies, prove a remanence that surprises. As if to get rid of permanently, a journey through the desert for forty years would be imposed to these new generations. There is a dark side to some of them, but also constant parodic ingredients. It is known that the remedy to a grotesque atmosphere can be only through irony and distancing. Therefore, the image issue continues to reign as absolutist queen as if the tools of abstraction cannot sublimate the matter of the past. The artists appear as post conceptual. In the necessary updating of the art in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, handling ideas remains a priority and we feel that the index of trustworthiness of these generations acquires reliability only via una cosa mentale. They all have an international career and are constantly present in iconic events of recent years.

  • Mircea Cantor
  • Calin Dan
  • Adrian Ghenie
  • Iosif Király
  • Victor Man
  • Olivia Mihalțianu
  • Ciprian Mureșan
  • Ioana Nemeș
  • Serban Savu