Abziehbild. Unapplied Arts at Arsmonitor

Artists: Radu Comșa, Dumitru Gorzo, Maxim Liulca, Gili Mocanu, Sorin Neamțu, Radu Pandele, Carmen Rasovszky, Gheorghe Rasovszky, Victoria Zidaru, Marian Zidaru

Exhibition title: Abziehbild. Unapplied Arts

Venue: Arsmonitor, Bucharest, Romania

Date: September 14 – November 1, 2023

Photography: IONUȚ DOBRE / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Arsmonitor, Bucharest

“Abziehbild. Unapplied Arts” is the first exhibition in the ARSMONITOR program, in which the visions of 10 artists are intertwined, each unique in their creative approach: Radu Comșa, Dumitru Gorzo, Maxim Liulca, Gili Mocanu, Sorin Neamțu, Radu Pandele, Carmen Rasovszky, Gheorghe Rasovszky, Victoria Zidaru, and Marian Zidaru. You will explore their practice in the gallery’s future projects in depth.

They cover 30 years of contemporary art history, from the ’90s to the present. They also represent the geographical areas in which they come from and operate, such as Bucharest, Cluj, and Timișoara. United by a shared passion for imagery, form, and artistic expression, these creators bring their unique visions into the world of “unapplied arts.”

This label — an ironic convention — describes a possible cross-border territory between tradition and contemporaneity, blurring the boundary between “high arts” and “applied arts”: drawing without a trace, painting without representation, design without functionality, sculpture without rond-bosse, photography without archive, film without a script.

Furthermore, the idea of “unapplied arts” raises the possibility of a reactivation of how the public eye perceives art, emphasising art’s biographical and prosthetic function and less the contemplation of pure forms or the social-utilitarian and moralistic instrumentalisation of contemporary art.

“Abziehbild” is a term that can be understood both as an image transfer and as something ephemeral and derisive, encapsulating the essence of this exhibition and inviting the viewer to explore the countless faces of representation, from drawing and sculpture to abstract painting, photography, and video.

In this exhibition, you will encounter a selection of iconic “stickers” for the works of these artists: the surrealist photography and videography of the couple Carmen & Gheorghe Rasovszky, the intensity and free expression of Dumitru Gorzo’s painting, the iconography of Marian Zidaru’s sculptures and drawings, the sewn installations of Victoria Zidaru, the concrete compositions of Comșa’s painting, the informal drawings of Sorin Neamțu, the sensitive symbolism of Maxim Liulca, the depth of Gili Mocanu’s painting, and the fictional representations of Radu Pandele. Together, they provide an overview of artistic languages unburdened by utility, morality, and discourse, in which expression, subjectivity, and the interweaving of traditional and contemporary techniques take centre stage.