Mihai Pop on Fri, 18 Jan 2013 22:42:07 +0100 (CET)


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

[Nettime-ro] Plan B Berlin - Ioana Batranu


Dragi prieteni, miine deschidem expozitia Margins a Ioanei Batranu la Plan B Berlin. Expozitia este rezultatul unei colaborari incepute cu ani in urma si generate de convingerea ca Ioana Batranu, prin calitatea operei ei, merita din plin atentia scenei internationale de arta. Expozitia cuprinde lucrari de la inceputul anilor '90 pina azi si isi propune sa ofere o imagine cuprinzatoare asupra parcursului artistei.

Va trimit invitatia expozitiei; daca se intimpla sa fiti in Berlin, va asteptam sa ne vizitati!
Mihai Pop
Galeria Plan B  
Â
 
 Â
Ioana BatranuÂ
Margins
Â
Opening: Friday, January 18, 18 - 22 hÂ
January 18 - March 2, 2013
Tuesday - Saturday, 12 - 18 h
Potsdamer
Strasse 77 - 87, 10785 Berlin
Â
Galeria Plan B is pleased to announce the personal exhibition of
Romanian artist Ioana BatranuÂ(*born 1960, lives and works in
Bucharest, Romania).Â
We are happy to invite you to the opening of the exhibitionMargins on Friday, January 18Âfrom 6 to 10 pm.


Ever since its opening in 2005, Plan B Gallery undertook the
documentation of a relevant and significant part of the Romanian art of the
last decades which had been insufficiently researched. This year, Plan B
will open a documentation center in Cluj, thus rendering the research
process into a necessary coherent form. The work of important artists such
as Ioana Batranu will make the object of a thorough study which can
eventually form the full image of its importance and which crosses various
ages often debatable in terms of the social and artistic conditions they
offer.

Ioana Batranu debuted in the second half of the 80s in Romania with a
series of black and white figurative paintings featuring elements traced
back to punk culture, the fashion of the 50s and the iconic figures of
western movies. The art reviews of the time categorized these works as
neo-expressionist, but this label proved insufficient for describing the
subsequent development of her work. As of the 90s, Ioana Batranu has
clarified her artistic process while the feeling of alienation in relation
to reality and the autobiographical references have all become essential
principles in defining her artistic personality. In 1995 she participated in
one of the first big exhibitions dedicated to art in Central and Eastern
Europe, Beyond Belief, organized by Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago and curated by Laura J. Hoptman.
Ioana Batranu approaches themes which are marginal in relation to the
âofficialâ culture and expresses them with acute sensitivity, in
a permanent vacillation between subjectivity and reality. There are a few
themes constantly coming back (Melancholic Interiors, Enclosed
Gardens, and Latrines) which, seen together, form a coherent
image of her personal project: looking for the point in which the break with
the world and the attempt to make peace with it are simultaneous in her
existence. The conflict between the two leads the artist to subjects located
at the âperipheryâ of the society in which she lives and never
to the center thereof.
Reality has always represented the decisive stimulus of her painting.
Even in the 80s when most of the artists were concerned with intangible
things (artistic productions inspired by esoteric quests, national myths
etc.) for ensuring a professional comfort far from the official art, Ioana
Batranu undertook in her paintings precisely what she experienced and what
reality challenged her with. And reality as such, without embellishment, was
not illustrated in painting, but worked on and absorbed sometimes
obsessively.ÂThe Melancholic Interiors, the Enclosed
Gardens, and the Latrines form the core of this exhibition. In
the series of Enclosed Gardens, Ioana Batranu painted the tomb of
her mother and continuously repeated and updated this theme, as if for
gaining a clearer understanding of how to better internalize its very
powerful presence. The Enclosed Garden becomes in time the x-ray of
a healing process. The space of the cemetery is also invoked in other
thematic cycles, without being really described. The Simple
Landscapes can be ultimately seen as cemeteries without tombs while the Melancholic Interiors can be perceived as canned time, buried in
oblivion.Â
Ioana Batranu's paintings are subjective ways of relating to the
restriction of an existential physical or spiritual territory. Each tomb is
surrounded with a fence, each latrine is a narrow space, and each corridor
is stifling. The impersonal corridors, with identical doors can be the
hallways of a school, bloc staircases, prisons, hospitals etc. Once there,
the individual is submitted to a standardized behavior. The deep feeling of
alienation experienced by Ioana Batranu along the years persists even today
in a paradoxical society, which adjoins all possible contrasts in an absurd
manner â the opulent luxury alongside the depressing destitution
âÂequally present and frequently encountered. The spaces in which
loneliness and despair work as structuring principles are both the sordid
latrine and the interior of a time frozen palace, although opposing each
other in function.
Distancing herself from any affiliation to artistic trends (such as the
Prolog group with the members of which she exhibited in the 90s), Ioana
Batranu paints with the seriousness and urgency imposed by the substance of
immediate reality.
Â
For more information, please contact the gallery at contact@plan-b.ro and
+49.1723210711.Â
Â


Galeria Plan B
 Â 
 

________________________________
  Â 
________________________________
  
Romania:
Str. Henri
Barbusse 59-61
400616 Cluj
Tel +40.740.658555
 Â Germany:
Potsdamer Strasse 77-87
10785 Berlin
Tel.
+49.172.3210711
 

________________________________
  
www.plan-b.ro |Â
contact@plan-b.ro 
_______________________________________________
Nettime-ro mailing list
Nettime-ro@nettime.org
http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-ro
-->
arhiva: http://amsterdam.nettime.org/