Notoriety is what generally allows the work of an artist to feature in a museum exhibition. Notoriety mainly generated by recognition, consolidated in time as a result of repeated appreciation from the part of solid critical sources, or – alternatively – a renown obtained as an effect of spontaneous innovation, not rarely associated by the public with extravagance or the bizarre, and so invalidated through its duration but rewarded for its “originality”.
However museums also feature the works or artists with the purpose of not necessarily showcasing their personal talent but the patrimony items the artists had dealt with. These people are restorers, conservers or curators of artistic background. The language they learnt in specialised institutions, a language specific to the trade, to lines, forms and colour, allows them on a higher level – depending of course on their skill and knowledge of curatorial elements – to understand, to keep and to value an entire cultural heritage in optimal conditions, thus contributing adequately with adjacent theoretical research.
It is clear that, in a museum, the strictly creative work of these artists, that of individual creation, strongly subjective, plays a secondary part, when it isn’t (or should be) entirely excluded from their interventions, as is the case of restorers, whose craft imposes the utmost objectivity, a complete detachment from their creative egos.
Through the exhibition “Artists at the Museum” the Bucharest Municipality Museum presents these specialists to the public, but strictly in their roles as artists, unveiling thusly their creative capacities, often forgotten when they are praised for their professional activity. Conservers, curators and restorers of the museum present themselves to art lovers as painters, sculptors, graphic artists and master tapestry creators, all captivating through their creativity, their technique or through the subjects they chose to portray.
Defined by the authorised voices of several art critics or self-defined, the following artists offer their creations to the public of Bucharest in an eloquent group exhibition:
VASILE DOBRE
“Poetic enough as to not become lyrical, geometrical enough as to not “sting” the air around them, decorative enough as to not encourage an empty contemplation of content, these jewels concocted from threads of wool have a unique sort of dignity, capable of conveying a few of their personality’s characteristics (meaning fragments of the artist’s own personality) no matter the environment they are placed in.” (Corneliu Ostahie)
DINU MIHAI FĂLCOIANU
“The theory of contrasts that both reject and attract each other, unable to exist one without the other, is an axiom and needs no demonstration. However I propose a dialogue between the CONCRETE, as perceptible and tangible form of the real, with references to the mater and substance, on one hand, and ABSTRACT as product of thought, of rationality, of knowledge, on the other. (D. M. Fălcoianu)
RODICA ION
“In everything she’s done so far, Rodica Ion has expressed herself as a dominating, authoritarian, rational spirit, who has not allowed any trace of doubt or uncertainty to peak through. She is the kind of artist who installs themselves in form, subject and colour. Her searches come to an end when she begins to set herself on canvas, blocking out any access paths to her own laboratory of creation.” (Stan Constantin)
LAURENŢIU SOLOMON
“…the work of Laurențiu Solomon, inspired heraldic sign of the Romanian soul, of our villages of old, around which the entire camp ensemble seems to move sluggishly, as in a poet’s dream.” (Grigore Leaua)
NAZEN PELIGRAD
“Nazen Peligrad’s eyes are much too provoking, so that, immediately after you overcome the stage of the first emotional reaction, you do not think that what has been offered is more than anatomical evidence, hiding instead an inner plan, imitating outer projection but focusing on its own depths.” (Dan Stanca)
IOAN D. POPA
“In Ioan D. Popa’s work the impact is intense, continuous, perhaps a bit monotonous but distinguished, as the sound of an orchestra made up of cellos and double basses. Such preoccupation with planning and directing the ensemble are rare, as they are costly. Few artists dare to build, in a cultural environment unfit for seriousness, an exhibition which could easily find its place in a museum’s halls.” (Tudor Octavian)
SIMONA PREDESCU
“Varied scenes, where models pose provocatively (…), serve as a model or anti-model in the fabric of an upturned world, in which they compose a certain kind of game. A sort of fantastical Middle Ages, assimilated without betraying itself, charmingly bizarre, with heterogeneous forms and shapes, in which Simona Predescu searches for partners to bring into her own dreams…” (Dorana Coşoveanu)
The exhibition will be inaugurated on May 18th along with the opening day of the Villa Minovici. The exhibition will be open until September 4th 2016.