Visual arts in Romania have
\nbeen influenced by various factors in various times. Censorship in the
\ncommunist years and the freedom of expression gained following the events of
\nDecember 1989, the pressure of staying true to a particular movement and the
\nfreedom of expressing your own artistic beliefs, all these have shaped the works
\nof successive generations of artists. Seen as the first to approach the theme
\nof feminism in Romania, Marilena Preda-Sanc is also highly appreciated as one
\nof the most important contemporary Romanian artists. Marilena Preda-Sanc:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
My artistic practice
\nstarted in 1980. Ever since my first solo exhibition, I have tried to express
\nmyself through various artistic media, and I think this is what defines my
\nentire work. I have been very interested in the message and in what I was
\nattempting to say, and I tried to find the best form of artistic expression for
\nit. So in this respect, I have been interested in experimentation. Artistic
\npractices are very diverse, going from drawing to traditional painting, to art
\nbooks, photography, performance and installation. I have taught and I have
\ntaken great interest in art in public spaces. This includes all kinds of
\ntemporary events and performances happening in a public space. What I see as
\nthe most important to an artist is freedom. The freedom of creating, the
\nfreedom of waking up in the morning and doing whatever you choose. Freedom from
\ntrends, from clich\u00e9s, from the entire coercive system, be it ideological or
\ngenerated by the contemporary consumer society.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
For Claudia Braileanu, a
\nrepresentative of the new generation of visual artists in Romania, the concept
\nof freedom goes well beyond one’s personal space. Her experience in Germany
\nhelped shape her work in the field of visual arts:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I don’t necessarily mean
\nthe freedom to create, but rather the freedom to learn. It’s not so much the
\nfact that I wouldn’t want to be limited to a particular area or a particular
\nproject. It’s simply about being able to move around and find out things which
\ncan guide me towards new areas to explore and to become familiar with. Given my
\nbackground in painting, I started doing this because painting is precisely what
\nhad drawn me to the field of visual arts in the first place. I studied in
\nBucharest, at the National Arts University. Then there was another, equally
\nimportant experience for me, namely the scholarship at the Arts Academy in
\nLeipzig. This is where I tried to experiment things that I had not been very
\nfamiliar with. I have written texts for performances. I was in a visual art class
\nthat tapped into various media. We worked with painting, objects and even text.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Social involvement is important for the young
\ngeneration of visual artists too. Due to the unlimited possibilities offered by
\nnew technologies, Claudia Braileanu includes in her paintings an aesthetic that
\nemerged in the virtual space:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I picked a course called Social and Humour. It
\nwas something I hadn’t done in the past. In fact, in this entire context I
\nfound a means of expression that I then brought into my painting even though
\nwhat I experienced there was totally different. It was a totally different
\naesthetic in the way in which I looked at this idea of repetition, which was
\nvery important for me, and I tried to treat the social side through this idea
\nof repetition. A structure that repeats itself generates a certain pattern
\nwhich changes in time. Repetition changes a pattern. For me it is an organic
\nthing, which I have integrated into my painting. This is how I got to the
\nproject I’m working on now, which started two years ago. It was just painting
\nat first, but now it is also digital.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Marilena Preda-Sanc has had exhibitions in
\nprestigious galleries all over the world, such as Kultur Kontakt Vienna, Ernst
\nMuseum Budapest, Valparaiso Biennale, International Art Centre of Kyoto,
\nPropaganda Warsaw, and Kunsthalle Nurnberg. As a young artist trained in the 1970s
\nand ’80s, Marilena Preda-Sanc came into contact with the feminist ideas of that
\nera: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
When I started to make my first photos and
\ninterventions, in 1983, I knew nothing of feminism. However, it was an inner
\nstate, a strong feeling, I felt I had to do that. I’ve always thought of myself
\nas an opinion leader in my gender. I did it with empathy towards others.
\nSpeaking of which, it is what I practice in all I do as a visual
\nrepresentation, this is what I wish for. Of course, after 1990, when I met some
\ntheoreticians, such as Mihaela Miroiu, towards whom I feel a deep attachment,
\nor Laura Grunberg, I managed to travel, to understand the phenomenon. That is
\nwhen I became aware of what I was doing, and things became more applied. That
\nis how I got this label of feminist. I don’t understand feminism from the aggressive
\nperspective, practiced mainly in the ’70s, but, as I wrote or curated in
\nexhibitions, I understand it rather from the eco-feminist perspective, a
\ncertain deep ecology. I think it is essential.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The everyday and cultural experience that Marilena
\nPreda-Sanc and Claudia Braileanu transpose into visual art are offered to the
\npublic from the perspective of two different generations of artists. Which is
\nimportant beyond the means of expression, it is a dialogue between two eras to
\nwhich the artists belong. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our segment today features contemporary artist Marilena Preda-S\u00e2nc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":162455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[43319],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-162454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-arts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n