February 23rd – March 20th
Opening: February 23rd, 7pm
In 2008, artist Ghenadie Popescu walked from Chișinău to Iași, dragging behind him an oversized replica of a polenta. A student walked along with him, filming the performance.
This is just one of his art performances where the main object, also symbolically relevant, was a polenta. Everyday experimental objects are used by Ghenadie to question acute social and political issues in Moldova.
His hybrid objects, partially made of polenta, such as a shovel, a bell, a vise, a military mask or a telephone, contextualize Moldova`s social identity: the transition from the Soviet past, to the democratic present that a large part of the population finds disconcerting.
The decomposed polenta displayed at RAFT is a symbolic reference to the sum of all these works by Ghenadie.
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Artist Ghenadie Popescu (b. 1971, Republic of Moldova) uses in his artistic practice Romanian symbolic elements: polenta, raffia bags, wheelbarrows and yokes. The materials and objects he uses always have a political and social stake, as they draw on current issues. Sometimes the artist dresses in raffia suits, as he thinks the cheap, common material “to delineate a certain territory and the period of time since the making of the Republic of Moldova”. His works have been on display in galleries from Chișinău, Moscow, Paris, Vienna, Düsseldorf and Bucharest.
A cultural program co-financed by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The program does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The Administration of the National Cultural Fund is not responsible for the content of the program or the manner in which the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.
