In the middle of the pandemic, artists are finding countless ways to continue their practice and lift our spirits. Eight Romanian artists have taken our challenge with the kind of ingenuity one would expect from highly creative minds and are ready to share with us and the world, every week, how the current situation impacts them and their artistic imagination. We are happy to announce the launching of our newest online program, ART FIGHTS CORONA, which presents every Friday an Art Talk.
#EPISODE 1 - IOANA CIOCAN
Ioana Ciocan is an independent curator based in Bucharest (RO), General Manager of Art Safari Bucharest, Vice President of the Union of Fine Artists in Romania, and member of the Scientific Council of Cotroceni National Museum. In 2015-16 she was part of the Curatorium team who developed the bid for Bucharest 2021 – European Capital of Culture. Ioana Ciocan is a lecturer on a regular basis at various institutions and events regarding Art in Public Spaces and Curatorial Practice (Art Embraces Brands 2017, Raiffeisen Bank 2016, Timisoara Architecture Annual 2015, Ministry of Culture – Centre for Professional Training in Culture, University of Bucharest – Faculty of Political Science, Mora Foundation, Arts Management Institute, Association for the Promotion of Contemporary Art etc.).
WATCH HERE >>> Ep/1: Ioana Ciocan - Make bread, not war | May 1, 2020
#EPISODE 2 - MEGAN DOMINESCU
Megan Dominescu (b. 1997) is a visual artist, living and working in Bucharest. She graduated from the Department of Painting at the National University of the Arts, Bucharest in 2018. Born in the Netherlands to Romanian and American parents, Megan grew up in Washington, D.C. and later on moved to Romania. Megan’s clashing background is a strong inspiration in her practice, her work being focused on observing and documenting the absurd and celebrating the bizarre. She is a member of the multi-disciplinary art space MOXA20 in Bucharest and is one half of the DJ duo Miss Clitoral.
WATCH HERE >>>Ep/2: Megan Dominescu - At home | May 8, 2020
#EPISODE 3 -DANIEL RĂDULESCU
Daniel Rădulescu (b. July 1, 1990) graduated in Graphic Design and for many years immersed himself in 3D computer graphics, which helped him develop an excellent depth perception. In 2014 he chose to make a career shift and started to use all the acquired knowledge and skills in a more tangible way. Consequently, he began an apprenticeship under the guidance of renowned artist and professor Adrian Ilfoveanu in the Sculpture department of the National University of Fine Arts in Bucharest. By that time, Daniel had showed a growing interest in a variety of materials and techniques like stone carving or clay modeling. However, as his evolutionary journey progressed, what really started to hold his attention was the contrast between metal’s toughness and its potential “fluidity.” These intriguing qualities of the material pushed him to experiment with the welding technology and ultimately allowed him to create impressive works that vividly captured movement and energy. By adding multiple layers of melted steel, the outcome proved remarkable due to the contrasting textures that blended perfectly, resulting in expressive metal sculptures, full of dynamism despite their inherent density and weight.
WATCH HERE >>>Ep/3: Daniel Radulescu - Agony |May 15, 2020
#EPISODE 4-RADU PANDELE
Radu Pandele (b. 1993) studied at the art universities of Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest in Romania and at University of Grenoble in France. He is part of a generation of new Romanian artists who are interested in exploring novel, experimental, and provocative ideas expressed through different techniques. Pandele is working in a wide range of mediums, using painting, conceptual art and digital art to reflect and comment on modern-day society. He is focused mostly on nihilistic absurdism, leading the viewer through a very personal and heavily coded landscape, challenging him to be at once critical and obedient to the world. Each artwork becomes a possible key for unlocking this reality in which common rules are no longer valid. The artist's ambition is to assemble a body of works that can reveal us how to defuse social, cultural, and political stereotypes.
WATCH HERE >>>Ep/ 4: Radu Pandele - ALONE. TOGETHER | May 22, 2020
#EPISODE 5 - MIHAI ZGONDOIU
Mihai Zgondoiu (b. 1982), aka Zgondy, is an independent artist, curator and gallerist with a PhD in visual arts whose prodigious art career is reflected in thought-provoking and visually stimulating projects. Since 2014, he is an associate lecturer at the National University of Arts in Bucharest and from 2018 he also teaches at the Faculty of Arts and Design in Timisoara. Zgondy’s artistic concerns are polyvalent as his visual practices as artist and art director interweave into a multidimensional space where a variety of thoughts and ideas coexist. As an art director, he initiated and coordinated the project „Atelier 030202”, a contemporary art gallery in Bucharest, which opened in 2019. He was the co-curator of the „geamMAT” gallery of the Art Museum in Timisoara (2012 - 2014) and co-curator of the „Atelier in transition” artist run space (2009 -2013). In 2017, Zgondy won the Romanian Union of Visual Artists Award for “Art in the Public Space” and in 2019 the Jeune Création Europeenne (JCE) Contemporary Art Biennale Award (Romanian section).
WATCH HERE >>> Ep/ 5: Mihai Zgondoiu - RE-SET. Art & Life | May 29, 2020
#EPISODE 6 - VLAD NANCĂ
Vlad Nancă (b. 1979, Bucharest) graduated the Department of Photography and Moving Image at the National University of Arts, Bucharest. His early works employ political and cultural symbols, evoke nostalgia and investigate the tension between public and domestic spaces, all against the backdrop of Romania and Eastern Europe’s recent history and aggressive capitalism of the early 2000s. His current body of works examines the notion of space, from architecture and public space to outer space, forging constellations of subjectivities, sculptures, and installations.
WATCH HERE >>>Ep/6: Vlad Nancǎ - Original Content |June 5, 2020
#EPISODE 7 - DAN BADEA
Dan Badea (b. 1975, Bucharest) is a seasoned professional artist with numerous personal and collective exhibitions. He focuses on the figurative art, aiming to depict the complications of life through a combination of color, texture and symbolism. He often uses collages as a way of layering and mixing the surface with the meaning of the materials. Dan Badea is interested in reviving and reframing all his paintings, overlapping the paint with old cuttings and photographs in different ways according to specific purposes. In this way he creates narrative stories to act like subversive advertisements for immaterial things such as Memory, Love, The Sublime, Paradise, Death, or the definition of the human being. It is, after all, an artistic attempt at resistance and critique.
WATCH HERE >>> Ep/7: Dan Badea - Fly chicken, fly! |June 12, 2020
#EPISODE 8 - SASHA MERET
Sasha Meret (b.1955, Romania) began studying art at an early age, and earned a BA in 1974, and an MA in 1979. After his arrival in New York (1987), he studied printmaking with Tony Harrison at Columbia University. Meret's work encompasses a wide range of techniques and styles, combining painting, drawing, photography, digital imaging with printmaking techniques like intaglio, woodcut, aquatint, monotype, working in a variety of styles, from representational to abstract. His imagery reflects his spiritual explorations, blending European, African, Asian, and esoteric symbolism in a highly personal visual language. He sees the creative process as a search to find ways of revealing the unexpected – the perpetual changing nature of everything that surrounds us. For over 20 years Sasha Meret collaborated as a weekly illustrator for "The New York Times", "International Herald Tribune", "Washington Post” and has illustrated several books for "Simon and Schuster", "Harper Collins", "Henry Holt" and other publishing houses. He currently lives and works in New York City, and he had exhibits in Europe, Japan, China and the U.S.
WATCH HERE >>>Ep/8: Sasha Meret - Facing the invisible siege |June 19, 2020
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