CRITICAL REVIEW

Becoming famous in the context of constructivist group from Timişoara, he mantains a complex program of cultural renewal, at formal level and aesthetic education level. His approach, purist at the beginning, based on a rigorous formal analysis, gradually integrates themes of meditationand expansion strategies of configuration processes, typical for Fluxus movement and for conceptualism. He focuses on operant principles of nature, after constructive principles of form. He runs a series of happening-type experiments in nature, with students in Timisoara. In his workshop, laboratory, he follows the development of some crops. Sunflower, cauliflower, beans are the topics of a series of complex images,including diaries, photographs, graphics, photographs, film, slides, whose spatial (and significant) core is represented by the crops. Throughout all his creation, casually using various media as appropriate tools to its complex messages, he makes constructivist-type objects (culminating in 1969 with the common project of the group 1.1.1, Informational Tower) or objects objects of a more complex nature, tending to installation. He realises a series of happenings and performances in which his own body as a selective sensor or as symbolic interpret of situations, is the heart of the experiment. He collaborates on various multimedia events of Sigma Group (whose founder he is, together with Constantin Flondor and Doru Tulcan. We remind Multivision, installation with video projections).
 
Alexandra Titu
 


IMAGES



    BIOGRAPHY

    Biography
    (Răcăștie, Hunedoara, 1930;  he emigrates to Germanyin 1980)


    Academic studies:
    1957 - 1962 - Institute of Fine Arts "Ion Andreescu" Cluj-Napoca;
    Professional activity:
    1962 - 1970 - Professor at the School of Fine Arts in Timisoara;
    1970 - 1981 - Lecturer at the Faculty of Civil Engineering.
    since 1964 - Member of Timisoara branch of Union of Artists;
    1966 - 1967 - Co-founder of the group "1. 1.1. "(First experimental group in Romania);
    1969 - 1978 - Member of Sigma Group (together with Flondor, Elisha Rusu, John Gait, Doru Tulcan and the mathematician Lucan Codreanu), Timisoara.


    PROJECTS

    Solo exhibitions:
    1990 - Gallery of Weissenhof, Heilbronn, Germany;
    1999 - A political-ecological EEG, Performance Festival, Zone 3, Timisoara;
    2001 - Self-portrait in Romanian contemporary art, Art Museum, Timisoara;
    2005 – Crossroads, ArTe Gallery, Bucharest;
    2009 - The Self Punishing One Mogoşoaia Palace, Ilfov
              - Palace Bánffy, Cluj-Napoca;
    2011 -  The Emigrant Clown, Quadro Gallery, Cluj-Napoca;
    2012 - Art Museum, Timisoara
              - De Natura Rerum, Johnen Galerie, Berlin, Germany;
    2013 - Notes from a notebook, Baroque Hall, Art Museum, Timisoara.
     
    Group exhibitions:
    1962 - 1968 - Annual Art Exhibition, Timisoara;
    1965 - 1968 - Annual Exhibitions of Art, with Group 1.1.1.;
    1968 - Five artists from Timişoara, Kalinderu Hall, Bucharest;
              - Decorative Arts Biennial, Milan, Italy;
    1969 - Nürnberg Biennale für konstruktive Kunst (with group 1.1.1.), Germany
    1970 - Exhibition of painting, sculpture and graphic of artists from Timişoara, Dalles Hall, Bucharest;
    - Students Cultural Center, Timisoara;
              - Artists Union Gallery, Timisoara;
    1971 - The Romanian Contemporary Art, Richard Demarco Gallery Edinburgh, Scotland;
    1973 - Cibinium festival, Sibiu;
    1974 – Week of Fine Arts, UNESCO
       - Inflatable Art, Bastion Gallery, Timisoara;
              - Art and Energy, New Gallery, Bucharest;
    1975 - First Leonardo Action, Central Park, Timisoara;
              - Art and the City, New Gallery, Bucharest;
    1976 - Second Leonardo Action, Central Park, Timisoara;
    1977 - Third Leonardo Action, Central Park, Timisoara;
    1978 - Study I, Bastion Gallery, Timisoara;
              - Fourth Leonardo Action, Central Park, Timisoara;
    1981 - Study II, Bastion Gallery, Timisoara;
    1985 - International Sculpture Festival "Forma Viva", Yugoslavia;
    1991 - 1992 - Creation and European synchronism;
                         - artistic movement in Timisoara in the 60s and 70s, Art Gallery, Timisoara;
    1991 - 1993 - Schöpfung und europäischer Synchronismus. Temeschwarer Künstlerbewegung der '60-'70 Jahre,Art Museum, Timisoara and Artexpo Gallery, Bucharest;
    1995 - Biennale in Venice, Italy;
    2001 - Selbstbildnis in der zeitgenössischen rumänischen Kunst, Timişoara;
    2009 - Derjenige, der sich selber bestraft, Bucharest and Timişoara;
    2013 - "Encyclopedic Palace", the 55th Biennale in Venice, Italy.
     
    Performance:  
    1972 - City-natural environment, river Timis, Timisoara;
    1973 – Tensionated bands over Timis, river Timiş, Timişoara;
    1974 – Action for Week of Fine Arts, UNESCO, Bastion Gallery, Timişoara;
      - Coronation as king with claws, artist's studio, Timisoara;
    1976 - The Membranes, Green Forest, Timisoara;
              - Action, Timis bank, Timisoara;
    1977 – The Broom, guardian with a diffiult heart, artist’s worktable, Timisoara
    1978 - Leonardo Installation, public show, Central Park, Timisoara;
             - Whose head is rolling by itself - man-rope or into the rope, artist’s workroom, Timisoara
    1979 - I lived with a sunflower plant for130 days, Kalinderu Hall, Bucharest;
             - Neurer Weg swimming through his working-pants pocket, artist’s workroom, Timisoara 
    - Eternity-blackberry juice on New Years Eve, Garda de Sus, Apuseni Mountains, Alba;
             - Eternity-the juice of the new years eve blacberry, Gârda de Sus, Apuseni Mountains, Alba;
             - I’m calm and proud I am living here and now.. so I must rest, stop the fuss, because tomorrow we will be pointless again, Semenic Mountain, Banat;
    1980 - 1981 – Actions with candles, garden of the artist, Timiş River, Timişoara;
    1981 – Opening of solo exhiition Sorin Dumitrescu, Pro Arte Gallery, Lugoj, Timiș;
    2002 - Speech, Performance Festival Zone 4, Timişoara.
     


    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    META Cultural Foundation, A century of Romanian Sculpture. Dictionary A-D. Collection Syntheses, META PH, 2001, pp. 60 - 61.

    Babeţi, Coriolan, Andrei Pleşu, Mihai Iapir, Dan Hăulică, Gheorghe Vida, Study II, catalogue, Timişoara, 1981. 
    Barbosa, Octavian, Konstructive Kunst Elemente und Prinzipen, catalogue, Bienale Nurnberg, 1969.
    Demarco, Richard, Anna Christina, Anastasiu, Cordelia Oliver, Romanian Art Today, Edinburgh, catalog, 1971.
    Drişcu, Mihai, catalogue of exhibition Art and City, Bucharest, 1974.
    Mocanu, Titus, Coriolan Babeti, Andrei Pleşu, catalogue Study I, Timişoara, 1978.
    Pintilie, Ileana, Ştefan Bertalan, Creation and European synchronism, catalogue, Timişoara, 1991.
    Schilru, Eugen, Five artists from Timişoara, catalogue, 1960.
    Titu, Alexandra, Experiment in Romanian Art after 1960, Soros Centre for Contemporary Art, Bucharest, 1997.