La Fondazione presents the first exhibition project conceived specifically for the new spaces at no. 18 Via Francesco Crispi, getting the institution’s cultural programming under way: a joint exhibition that brings together works by the artists Geta Brătescu (Ploiești, 1926 – Bucharest, 2018), Adrian Ghenie (Baia Mare, 1977), Ciprian Mureşan (Dej, 1977) and Şerban Savu (Sighișoara, 1978), curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto.
Adrian Ghenie, Ciprian Mureşan and Şerban Savu have all on a series of occasions spent time in the city of Rome: the exhibition is an original project stemming from an interplay of continual cross-references between the artists and the historical and cultural context in which they are operating and one that has been developed through some of the means of expression to which they most often resort in their work. They are joined by Geta Brătescu, tutelary genius of the three artists, whose works provoke a further level of exchange: between the artists and Geta’s creations, as well as between the artists themselves.
The dynamism of the responses to the stimuli coming from the location and the relationship with the other works results in a concerted site-specific visual journey that establishes a dialectical exchange between the paintings of Adrian Ghenie and Şerban Savu, the drawings, sculptures and videos of Ciprian Mureşan and some rare examples of Geta Brătescu’s graphic, photographic and film work.
Four artists from different generations who use different languages to express themselves, but who share not only a common Eastern European origin but also the same approach to the artist’s craft, centred on the concept of creative discipline. In the practice of each artist, the theme takes on a different expressive character, but always turns around some recurrent motifs: the studio, understood as ideal microcosm; the weight of history and of cultural tradition; the relationship with the masters of the past; the artist’s role in society
and the elective affinity that binds them together in different ways.
‘Notwithstanding their diversity, they share a common attitude towards the work of the artist and, spurred on by an authentic as well as spontaneous subjective necessity, interpret every possible semantic nuance, absorbing themselves fully in its exercise. In other words work is, for them, inspiration, talent, intemperance and creative impulse, but also craft, vocation, regularity and method. In short, a sort of hallmark that delineates at once their individual and artistic profile,’ explains Pier Paolo Pancotto, curator of La Fondazione.
The paintings of Adrian Ghenie, which investigate history, merging antiquity and current affairs, encounter the enigmatic images of Şerban Savu that portray a contemporary society suspended in timeless atmospheres. The graphic, sculptural and filmic experiments of Ciprian Mureşan deconstruct works of the past, turning them into platforms onto which he grafts multiple references to the contemporary. Finally, an illustrious counterpart to this series of reflections on the present founded on a reinterpretation of the past is provided by a group of very rare works by Geta Brătescu that include photographs, graphic art and films. One of the most influential women artists of her time, Brӑtescu has been fundamental in shaping the identity of an entire generation born on the eve of the fall of the communist regime.