Thirteen youngsters towards the End

The display recently opened at the National Theatre by graduates from the Bucharest Art University is a good way to find out the latest trends in Romanian plastic arts. The thirteen artists on display went to special art classes after graduation. Due to the large space they received at the Etaj 3/4 Gallery, one might say that there are actually 13 displays. The voyage begins with Maria-Caterina Preda, a skilled artist when it comes to abstract “Interiors,” “Communication” or “Transcendence.”

Protective or intertwined spaces host existential seeds, clearly rendered by an artist at her third personal display. She exposed in 1997 at the “5” Gallery in Bucharest and in 1998 at the French Institute. Horea Pop follows, with “Montaj” and “Intelegi” (a masculine torso filled with meanings) and a lot of Mircea Nechita, with mixed engravings and mixed techniques. Izvora Stancel paints “Floarea Soarelui,” “Femeia Sperietoare,” “Mac” or “Portraits” of bathing babies, in exotic colours, frozen on canvas.

Fragile figures signed Lastos Pantelis traced in shaky lines. The obsession of the text as means of plastic representation appears in the work of Virgilius Mocanu as a Dadaist procedure. “Strat de versuri,” for Gili. Bogdan Pelmus shows in his display the decrepitude of the world. A poor space, almost vulgar, filled with plaster and dirty mirrors expresses the End without an apotheosis. The apocalyptic landscape is completed by Dan aerbanescu’s posters (“Chao Tic P Ost Nuclear L Ife”) or the emblems depicting slaughtered chicken by Dragos Coman.

Ciprian Paleologu proposes twisted beings, entities of hidden universes. His works received in 1998 the Painting Award of the Romanian Institute for Cultural and Humanistic Research in Venice and in 2000, the Grand Prize given by the UAP at the contest-display “Accente” in Bucharest. A strident, wearisome universe, is also present in Daniel Shaglan’s “Casa Poporului” and “Godzilla.” There are also posters bearing the stamp “RO” belonging to Andrei Stoleru, the shoe-emblem of Dragos Coman or the Auto-bio-graphy of Otilia Puscasu. It all points to an artistic youth, preoccupied with a broken-down, evil and ugly world. Their abilities are working for the vision of a tortured universe.