At the beginning of the 1970s in Bucharest, Decebal Scriba was one of the most striking and cutting-edge personalities. His experiments are reviewed today as an integral part of the avant-garde tradition of this key moment in the history of post-war art. During this decade Decebal is the author of a consistent and elaborate work, of conceptual and performative approach, addressing issues of both formal and textual language, the analysis of system of spatial representation, symbolic gestures and forms, and doing performance that was a genre that suited the underground context of East Europe, the memory of all these gestures and actions was indeed extolled and dissolved in the clouds.

Bad luck caused the regime to stiffen afterwards and the strict and dogmatic environment put an end to all artistic fulfillment and independence. It is only recently that the artist has begun to create in a mood in adequacy with the present and moreover this exhibition demonstrates a second youth with an approach as strong as that of the beginnings.

The title of this exhibition is not a reminder of a project of ten years ago in Trafalgar Square, London where the public sent short text messages grafted onto smoke plume. This is not either an allusion to data storage so widespread nowadays in the cloud. It is an attempt to poetry that rehabilitates the memory of shared moments gone by and whose snatches scattered here and there, but this time the opportunity is given to gather them together for an exhibition.

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About the artist

Decebal Scriba (b. 1944) has been living in Fontainebleau-Avon since 1991. He is an artist approaching media such as photography, installation, performance and video art, with sustained activity in the sphere of conceptual art, in which he also integrates his preoccupation with drawing. Along with Nadina Scriba, he initiated the document video project House pARTy, editions I and II, between 1987 and 1988, in Bucharest.

In 2015 he opens his first personal exhibition at the Victoria Art Center, Bucharest, followed by his second, in 2016, at the Calina Gallery in Timișoara, both curated by Olivia Nițiș. He contributes to the exhibition Situations and Concepts, curated by Magda Radu, organized in 2017 at the Project Salon in Bucharest.

In 1974, led by the absurd, Decebal Scriba performed an unusual act. He walked down the street holding his hands in the shape of an object that looked like a gift box and tried to offer it virtually to passers-by. That year, the performance was met with the utter perplexity, as the audience probably reacted thinking of a facetious student, pushing them on an eccentric merry-go-round. The re-enactment of this performance during Art Encounters 2017 puts the interaction with the other in a radically different context. Previously, it was a matter of confronting, on a personal level, a norm imposed by the political regime in power. This time the volunteer performers will serve as a counterweight, with originality, contesting to individualism. The public will certainly play along and accept this hybrid creation, at once a virtual sculpture and a contemporary choreography, that is similar to the aesthetics of do-it-yourself, staged in a comic way.

About the gallery

Anca Poterașu Gallery is a contemporary art gallery founded in May 2011 in a late 19th century old heritage building in Bucharest. Starting out from just 20m² of exhibition space in the unique turn-of-the-century-old setting, the Gallery has since expanded, becoming one of the best well-known art establishments in the city.

The Gallery shows art in different media – painting, drawing, art-objects, installation, photography and moving image work. It focuses on presenting, supporting, promoting and furthering the career of Romanian artists – well-established names such as Matei Bejenaru, Decebal Scriba, Doina Simionescu film-maker Irina Botea, Nicu Ilfoveanu or Robert Koteles, Zoltan Bela and Aurora Kiraly as well as younger emerging artists, such as Iulian Bisericaru, Daniel Djamo and Olivia Mihălțianu.
The exhibition programme is centred on curatorial practice that encourages collaborations with art practitioners from across the country and from around the world. Organising between five and seven shows a year, the programme varies between solo and group exhibitions from Anca Poterasu Gallery’s roster as well as guest artists. The international residency programme – PLANTELOR 58 – has been initiated in 2014 by expanding the existing exhibition space with living and working quarters for the resident artists from around the world.

With a solid platform in Bucharest, Anca Poterasu Gallery aims to further develop the international visibility of its artists through cooperation with galleries and institutions outside Romania as well as by continuing its uninterrupted participation in selected international art fairs.