Education and Public Relations

The present article aims at analyzing The Quartet Series, one of the numerous symbolist topics that the Transylvanian painter Octavian Smigelschi (1866-1912 approached in his artistic carrier; though researchers in the field have previously approached this topic, it has more to offer. Analyzing this cycle of works enabled me to perceive the different stages in Smigelschi's elaboration of compositions, the way the artists, just like a film director, guided his subjects to obtain the maximum effect from their association. The article establishes a development path of this cycle and in the same time tries to establish Octavian Smigelschi's place in the context of Central-European painting.

Atmosferă animată, pregătiri intense, spaţii arhipline, lume bună, artişti profesionişti, mult tineret, studenţi, forfotă, nenumărate lucrăricam aşa au stat lucrurile în cazul celor mai multe episoade cu subiect artistic în formă ceramică, consumate în cadrul celei de-a doua ediţii a CICB. Acest megaeveniment plasează clar Klausenburgul pe harta ceramicii mondiale, aşa că mă infiltrez, istoric de artă, şi savurez pe deplin acest schimb cultural. Organizatorii, cu o vastă experienţă internaţională în domeniul ceramicii şi sub auspiciile reuşitei ediţii precedente, Arina Ailincăi, Marius Silviu Georgescu şi Gavril Zmicală, au intuit nevoia de a organiza la Cluj, centru artistic cu o şcoală recunoscută de ceramică, o serie de evenimente orchestrate gradat, astfel încît să intermedieze apropierea publicului de noile tendinţe din ceramica actuală. Coordonatorii au propus un itinerar artistic amplu, care implică mai multe spaţii expoziţionale clujene: Muzeul de Artă Cluj, UAD Cluj, Liceul de Artă Cluj, Galeria Horeb, Galeria IAGA, Galeria Quadro, Centrul de Cultură Urbană Cazino, şi extraclujene, sub semnul mobilităţii culturale: Galeria UAP Sibiu, Muzeul Memorial "Octavian Goga" Ciucea, Galeria Galateea, Bucureşti. Efortul lor a fost susţinut de această dată de autorităţile locale, de Universitatea de Arte şi Design, de Muzeul de Artă şi de spaţiile expoziţionale private, dar şi de o finanţare AFCN. Prin simpla enumerare a evenimentelor culturale cuprinse în program: simpozionul Ceramica între tradiţie şi contemporaneitate, expoziţia internaţională Figura umană în ceramică, expoziţia Ceramişti din România, expoziţia Tabu: decor şi accesoriu. Rendez-vous la Goga, proiecţia filmului documentar Ceramic Processthe Art of Fire, Ceramica în context contemporan -masă rotundă, se poate deduce com plexitatea problemelor abordate.

Autor: Ioana GRUIŢĂ SAVU | Categoria: Arte | 0 comentarii Recomanda articolul prin: Tipareste pagina Marime text Pe Octavian Smigelschi nu prea aveţi de unde să-l cunoaşteţi, numai dacă întîmplător aţi studiat istoria artei, dacă aţi vizitat recent Catedrala Mitropolitană din Sibiu ori dacă v-a picat în mînă o gazetă culturală mai recentă, de după 2012, unde au fost luate în discuţie expoziţiile contemporane retrospective, dedicate pictorului. Smigelschi nu are cotă de piaţă, nu apare în licitaţii publice, decît foarte rar, după ştiinţa mea, de trei ori, în ultimii zece ani (la Bucureşti şi la Budapesta). Însă opera lui redescoperită a avut capacitatea de a aduna, în ultimii ani, sub aceleaşi afişe, o miriadă de instituţii şi de personalităţi ale vieţii culturale româneşti la Sibiu, Blaj, Oradea, Bucureşti şi, acum, la Cluj. Probabil că aţi auzit mai degrabă de corespondenţii săi, de comanditarii săi, de prietenii săi şi de cei care au scris cronici despre activitatea sa: Nicolae Iorga, Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş, Ion Agârbiceanu, Elie Miron Cristea, Octavian Goga, Valeriu Branişte, Octavian C. Tăslăuanu, episcopul Demetriu Radu, episcopul Vasile Hossu, pictorul Székely Bertalan, criticii şi istoricii de artă: Lotz Károly,Virgil Vătăşianu, Gheorghe Vida, Negoiţă Lăptoiu, Nicolae Sabău sau Iulia Mesea.

Abstract:
This  article  intends  to  bring  into  attention  the  creation  process  behind  Octavian  Smigelschi’s
works.  The  Transylvanian  painter  used  different  artistic  mediums  to  ease  his  preparatory  work  and  this
article  reconstructs  the  complex  path  of  his  images  that  were  subjected  to  a  laborious  process  of
transposition of ideas in various techniques. Smigelschi made use of modeling, photography and collage to
construct his characters and his compositions and by analysing the entire laboratory behind his creation one
can better understand how his ideas evolved. The artist understood the great advantages of photography and
by using it aligned his creation with that of his more famous contemporaries form western Europe. 
Key words : Smigelschi, technique, collage, photography, modeling, artistic mediums, Transylvania

The Postmodern Cat Devours the Decorative Ceramics,
Repercussions of Cluj International Ceramic Biennale (CICB), Second Edition 2015

CICB has reached its 2nd edition, becoming a festival dedicated to contemporary ceramics. A series of national and international exhibitions, round tables, symposiums and events dedicated to young ceramists placed Cluj on the international map of ceramic events. The Romanian ceramics was well represented and contextualized by juxtaposing it with international events, all underlining that contemporary ceramics developed a direct relation with new postmodern tendencies. Ceramics is no longer decorative or functional but can stand, as equal, next to painting or sculpture. CICB’s message was well reflected and submitted to public attention through the events organized between 8 October and 3 November 2015.

1001 Fragments and Stories - an Alchemic Collage Berlin-Cluj
“Fragmente des Anderen / Fragmentele celuilalt/ Fragments of the Other” is an ongoing project, with a long history - 500 collages and 15 years of artistic dialogue between two European artists of different nationality and cultural background – the Berliner artist Gisela Weimann, initiator of the project, and her partner, the visual artist Andor Komives, from Cluj. The project is based upon an exchange of pictorial pieces from their work tables, which become a starting point for the other. The final works are exhibited as a mega-installation, and their production will continue till reaching 1001 pieces, just like in Arabian Nights story.

The visual artist from Cluj started in the 80’s as a neoexpressionist painter, with a personal mythology. Later on he included a social component, having a critical ironical approach to sore subjects expressed in a postmodern, neo-pop language. All his paintings, installations, performances reflect his complex personality. In the last years he has an introspective–autobiographical approach, expressed in a poetical-narrative style.

Szőcs Éva Andrea is a visual artist having an interdisciplinary and conceptual approach in her works. Recently she developed a new series where she included another dimension to her works by using Braille writing, being interested in the semantics and the direct connection between images and their meaning. Most of her works have in common a certain irony, where the concept dictates the means of expression, which usually are reduced to minimum.

Georgiana Cozma is a visual artist involved in social problems and as expected the recent European refugees’ crisis stirred a powerful artistic statement on her part. In summer, she started a series of ceramic installations meant to question the impact of the crisis on the Europeans and the long term consequences of the clash of two different civilizations. The common message of her works entitled Bitter bread, Stolen silence and Online highlights the struggle for identity preservation and the debates over the inner distortion of individuals under the impact of uncertainty, doubt, and fear.

FORBIDDEN DIRECTION – A DEVIOUS DIRECTION
AN EXHIBITION TO WHICH IT MAKES SENSE TO GO PREPARED
Ioana Gruiţă-Savu


The article takes into discussion the recent temporary exhibition “FORBIDDEN DIRECTION, Romanian Graphic Art, Drawing and Collage Between 1960-1994”, organized at the Art Museum in Cluj and curated by Dan Breaz. The artistic event brought together a large number of famous Romanian graphic artists - Olimpiu Bandalac, Corina Beiu Angheluţă, Ion Bitzan, Geta Brătescu, Eva Cerbu, Marcel Chirnoagă, Roman Cotoşman, Drocsay Imre, Feszt László, Benedict Gănescu, Ala Jalea Popa, Gheorghe Leolea, Puia Hortensia Masichievici, Florin Maxa, Fred Micoş, Wanda Mihuleac, Ion Nicodim, Florin Niculiu, Simona Runcan, Clarette Wachtel - that chose to distance themselves from the communist propaganda and made a step towards neo-avant-garde and contemporary art.

Exhibition catalog, 14 October – 26 November 2017,
National Museum Of Transylvanian History, Cluj-Napoca, Romania 

The art event BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE, organised by NMTH (curator Ioana Gruiţă Savu) during the 3rd Cluj Ceramics Biennale 2017, exhibits a series of works prepared by the visual artist Andrea Éva Szőcs (Hungary), having as a focal point moral, existential or aesthetic problems, perceived in a conceptual manner. This exhibition consists of installations, objects on canvas, ceramics and prints that are, in the real sense, as well as in the message they transmit, between black and white.

Some of the exhibited works, specifically created for this event, are constructed as a dialog between old and new, between cultural artifacts, hosted by the National Museum of Transylvanian History, and their artistic potential, seen from a contemporary perspective. Other exhibited works are built around semantic matters and take aim at transforming images in texts. In order to do so, the artist used Braille or pixels for encoding and decoding the images.

Blind date – A Post-Factum Perception and Intention
Summary
Lateral Art Space, a platform created in 2012 for promoting young artists, hosted by the well-known Paintbrush Factory in Cluj-Napoca, launched in December 2017 an inciting invitation for a Blind Date. The unknown author was supposed to reveal his identity in the opening of the event (exhibition, discussions, performance, installation, or all in one). For enticing the public’s curiosity, Blind Date/The struggle between academic abstractionism and globalized formalism was promoted through a dense statement, seriously anchored in the theory of art, next to the image “Trompe l’oeil. The Reverse of a Framed Painting”, 1668–1670, signed Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts.