THINGS IN THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR MAY 10th – JULY 2nd, 2021 Featuring works of Gili Mocanu - Anca Muresan - Ecaterina Vrana Dumitru Gorzo - Nicolae Comanescu - Virginia Toma videoart by -Mitos Micleusanu - Regele Ionescu audioart by Regina Ionescu ART 9TEEN Vienna Private Art Club 1190 Wien, Billrothstraße 29, 1st floor Hosted by in cooperation with MARe Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania www.mare.ro H’Art Gallery, Bucharest, Romania www.hartgallery.ro Kunsthaus 7B, Cisnădioara, Romania www.kunsthaus7b.eu with the friendly assistance of www.liliac.com www.amb-holding.at www.rtimmo.at 2 Things in the rear-view mirror are closer than they appear Recent Romanian Art from MARe/Museum of Recent Art Things in the rear-view mirror are closer than they appear is an insight in recent Romanian art from the Southern part of the country. It is a compact, transversal section through various, current artistic idioms: an intensely colored display of disturbance, frailty, rigor and fervor. The selected works and artists mix craftsmanship and naivety, belief and blasphemy, hermeticism and humor, feminism and eroticism, consumerism and depression. It is about the fusion of submissiveness and protest that gripped the entire Romanian society after the fall of communism, in 1989. The preponderance of painting in Romanian art is a result of the decades-long severe artistic education in realist, fine-crafted works of art expected to achieve propaganda tasks until 1989. After 1989, that practice dramatically lost official commissions. But painting was still there, ready. It became the platform at hand, a game console fitting a plurality of plots in Romanian art. From the dark, obscure metaphysics and syncretic mysticism to the glossy, neo-pop icons and violent, pseudo- Dada political scribbling, painting, a supposedly dull tool, turns into a springy widget for dizzying experiences. Things in the rear-view mirror are closer than they appear introduces a kind of endemic art dominated by a dystopian drive, drafting fictitious spaces of massive decompensation. The exhibition traces the common ground of apparently divergent, diverse phenomena such as the anxious and ecstatic, gloomy apprehensions of painters like Gili Mocanu and Anca Mureșan, and the frantic proliferation of Ecaterina Vrana, Dumitru Gorzo and Nicolae Comănescu. The carefully crafted and richly textured canvases of Gili Mocanu, Anca Muresan and Virginia Toma act as a sumptuous, speculative refuge of liberty. Faced with the merciless dictates of commonsensical practices and discourses, they negotiate with the socially-controlled semiotics. They meticulously spoil and disrupt perception and meaning, aiming to produce unyielding, impenetrable works, as less understandable as possible, and as aesthetically dense as they can. Contrariwise, Ecaterina Vrana indulged in self-protective, chromatic roaming, proffering the desirable objects of internal longings with the suffocating means of flashy, glamorous colors of teeny stories, critically borrowed from the soft, invading industry of mass advertising. Dumitru Gorzo and Nicolae Comănescu enact painterly and ironically the performative domination of a masculine, authoritarian, and violent society, unhinged between excess and decay, and mesmerized by power, sex, and conspicuous (more media, virtual, than real-) consumption. The thrilling audio piece by Regina Ionescu is a dirge-like, murmured concrete poetry filled with dark nostalgia and excruciating anxiety, yet shaped in a smooth and caring voice, as if a soft sound matter enveloping the beholder turned into listening subject. Things in the rear-view mirror are closer than they appear is accompanied by a pseudo-documentary section made up of three video works, as a social backdrop to the canvases on display. A Sort of Fiction by Cristina David is a fake draft of a soap opera, having exclusively Rroma, amateur actors, who humorously follow the pseudo-script for one minute, and then joyfully get rid of the imposed scenery, narrative, acting and filming, hijacking the story to explosive, indiscriminate self-posturing, amidst an enthralling, rural landscape of flowering poppies. In its turn, Video-portrait by Regele Ionescu is a staggering vista of Bucharest, combined with a warm approach to the social, behavioral and even ethnic changes. The film begins as a minute, undercover documentary of a day in the life 3 of an unknown, typical Bucharest inhabitant, picked up at random from a subway station, and then sneakily tracked during his tribulations in the hectic capital city. When, in the twilight, the filmmaker is finally approaching his character in the street, telling of his endeavor, the ”typical Bucharest character” proves to be a young Frenchman cruising through the city to meet his Romanian girlfriend. He is distraught by the filmmaker and jumps into a taxi to escape his proposal of becoming a movie hero. In Generation loss, Michele Bressan investigates the routine of watching. He recorded the House of People, the palace of the former political regime, on old-fashioned VHS tapes. The actual footage of the House of People lasts only a couple of seconds. The rest of the video is filled with its repeated, 20 times copying and re-copying, progressively altering the quality of the recording, which finally becomes illegible. The technical process reflects the political transition through the transition of the image from figurative to abstract, from the specific political representation towards its dissolution, in time, into a white noise of the collective subconscious. Things in the rear-view mirror are closer than they appear is an exhibition conceived by MARe/Museum of Recent Art with works selected from its collection and from the artists themselves. Erwin Kessler Director, MARe/Museum of Recent Art Bucharest 4 H’ART GALLERY — BUCHAREST, ROMANIA One of Bucharest’s Oldest Private-Run Galleries Whilst Romania might still rank among the first in the European Union in terms of relative poverty, its capital Bucharest has been rapidly developing into an influential hub for at we're seeing now is a vibrant, cultural capital that is finally ready for the international attention contemporary art. It's been over thirty years since the country came out of its Communist era and the capital city, along with its artists, have morphed through a host of subsequent phases. What we're seeing now is a vibrant, cultural capital that is finally ready for the international attention its now getting. H'art Gallery opened in late 2002, being the second portfolio private-run gallery in Romania. The main goal is to promote young contemporary art and to consolidate the art market environment. The focus is on the generation of artists educated after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989. Alexandru Paul, Florin Ciulache, Ion Barladeanu, Stefan Triffa, Anca Muresan, Adrian Preda, Nicolae Comanescu, Tets Ohnari, Gili Mocanu, Suzana Dan, Stefan Ungureanu, Marian Zidaru, Dumitru Gorzo, Marin Gherasim, Vioara Bara, Dan Palade, Codruța Cernea are some of the most active artists that H'art Gallery proudly represents. The team of H’art Gallery began working with Romania’s young artists, many of who continued on to become incredibly important for the local contemporary art scene. These days, their roster of artists is smaller, but one thing that they all have in common is the deep passion and dedication to Romanian contemporary art. Founder Dan Popescu started his business because of his friendship with artists, and runs the space together with Ioana Marinescu, who began working for him over ten years ago. Marinescu wanted to study art, but rather than only focus on the theoretical she chose to include the practical study, which is why she first applied for a job at the gallery. She says: “Knowing the artists and the process behind their art is what shaped the curatorial program at H’art. For me, the artistic biography proved to be the most important thing.” Dan Popescu Founder & Director, H’art Gallery Bucharest 5 GILI MOCANU - Date and place of birth: 18 ianuarie 1971, Constanța, Romania - Bachelor's degree: National University of Arts Bucharest, 1999. - Master degree National University of Arts Bucharest, 2000. Personal exhibitions in Romania 2021 CLAR.OBSCUR ⎢G.M., SAC (in preparation) 2018 Dublul, Arcub 2016 Lucrări făcute în America, H’art Gallery 2014 JDS - GM - H’art Gallery, Bucharest 2012 Blindness - H’art Gallery, Bucharest 2011 Gili a murit #3 - H'art gallery, Bucharest 2010 GILI MOCANU. Each of those two moments - National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania 2009 Lih – Point Contemporary Gallery, Bucharest 2008 GM - Fabrica, Bucharest 2007 CO - National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest CUIB - The Fish Gallery, Constanta, Romania 2006 Mit technik – H’art Gallery, Bucharest Operating parameters - Art Museum, Constanta 2005 Formula - Posibila Gallery, Bucharest Ohne Technik – H’art Gallery, Bucharest 2004 Two Friends - Posibila Gallery, Bucharest XL - Carturesti Bookstore, Bucharest 2003 Inventory - French Institute, Bucharest Without Inspiration - Posibila Gallery, Prometheus Club, Bucharest 2002 Without Title - deINTERESE Gallery, Bucharest 2001 Mioritza Shut Down - S.P.A.C.E Gallery – International Centre for Contemporary Art, Bucharest International exhibitions: 2013 The double - Galeria das Salgadeiras, Lisbon 2007 ...Dont`t complicate the sleeping Baroque... - Kunstraum NOE (Niederösterreich), Vienna Donumenta - Regensburg, Germany Group Shows 2016 Artistul