Malevich Library/ The Marin Sorescu National Theater of Craiova
The utilitarian sculpture Malevich Library includes a series of books purchased in recent years from Romanian antique shops, selected from various technical fields such as technical drawing, architecture, film, urbanism, and theater. The work was donated to Electroputere Gallery, to consolidate future artistic production and increase access to technical knowledge developed during socialism. Although the donated copies represent about 20% of the personal library, they are of major importance to my own artistic and cultural education. By permanently integrating the selection made in the program of various institutions, the content of the collection can be reactivated to be consulted by artists and researchers interested in the mentioned topics, preventing the professional obsolescence of the materials. The collection was extended with the ocassion of the artistic residency and Re-altering Reality exhibition (curated by Catalin Gheorghe) and organized by Electroputere Craiova (2020). The library was later recreated with support of Satelit association in 2021.
The artistic research realized in Craiova and Iași proposes a series of visual analyzes focused on the mechanisms of spatialization exposed through the video essay, the sculptural object, and the visual diagrams. The conceptual framework of the project aimed at studies of functionality, modularity, and rhythm of some public buildings such as the “Marin Sorescu” National Theater of Craiova and the cinemas part of the urban morphology built in the socialist period. By comparatively evaluating the patterns of spatialization specific to urban centers and examining the transformations that cultural infrastructure underwent during the 1990s, I investigated the adaptation and alteration of public space caused by the current neo-liberalization trends. The latter becomes visible if we disclose the introduction into public agendas of the need to compose a hybrid space – often formalized through the public-private partnership, able to accommodate and stimulate new forms of culture, recreation, and consumption. The mentioned changes contributed to the indisputable alteration of the common property, generated and legitimized by the so-called period of the Romanian transition and by its effects on the means of cultural production and distribution. (Excerpt from the Re-altering Reality exhibition catalog).




