A survey of Romanian video art and its developments as seen from a historical, aesthetic but also socio-political viewpoint, spanning from the end of the 70s to the present day.
Alex Mirutziu’s (b.1981, Romania, living between Romania and the UK) practice extends over a wide range of media and activities, including sculpture, film, drawing, poetry and performance as well as critical and curatorial projects. Mirutziu’s practice interrogates the difficulty of dying, the immediate triviality of guilt as manifested in actions whose consequences cannot be fully imagined. He questions continuity as an irreversible, irreparable paradigm in video, performance, and mixed-media installations, and he looks for ways to materialize the conceptual and visceral sides of notions like loss, alienation, and abandonment.
“At the border of photograph and moving image, Self-portrait at 32 is a split screen showing the tops of two dilapidated buildings out of which sprouts some vegetation. The image remains almost motionless apart the delicate and subtle sway of the stems in the wind. Spontaneous vegeta-tion grows in unattended areas of the urban environment, reclaiming the ones controlled spaces and their ruins. they indicate the low economic value of the empty lots and of the dereliction of the former industrial areas. nevertheless, recently it has been shown that they actually contribute significantly to the health of the urban and rural ecosystem, as a metaphor for the condition of the artist, and a gay male in society characterized by widespread homophobia, this piece is also a tribute to the marginalized that nevertheless constitute an essential component of the character of the whole of society. the loneliness and isolation the video evokes is an expression of the artist’s own internal struggle with his position in the world, but through resilience, as we also observe in the plants that create space for themselves and reclaim what was once theirs, he succeeds in spite of environmental adversity.” (text by Olga Stefan)
Self-portrait at 32 - HD video, 1’, 2014 | From the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Romania (MNAC Bucharest) collection
Tears are Precious - Video, 2’55’’, 2007 | From the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Romania (MNAC Bucharest) collection