| Mihai Pop on Fri, 18 Jan 2013 22:42:07 +0100 (CET) |
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| [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    Ioana Batranu Margins  Opening: Friday, January 18, 18 - 22 h January 18 - March 2, 2013 Tuesday - Saturday, 12 - 18 h Potsdamer Strasse 77 - 87, 10785 Berlin  Galeria Plan B is pleased to announce the personal exhibition of Romanian artist Ioana BatranuÂ(*born 1960, lives and works in Bucharest, Romania). 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. 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.  For more information, please contact the gallery at contact@plan-b.ro and +49.1723210711.  Galeria Plan B  ________________________________  ________________________________ Romania: Str. Henri Barbusse 59-61 400616 Cluj Tel +40.740.658555  Germany: Potsdamer Strasse 77-87 10785 Berlin Tel. +49.172.3210711 ________________________________ www.plan-b.ro | 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/