Our current online arts series brings you the hotspots of Romania’s contemporary visual arts scene and some of the most talked-about artists' shows through 7 virtual gallery tours introduced by well establish curators and artists. Explore the portfolio of these first-rate galleries, located in major cities throughout Romania, and gain insight into their history, aesthetic outlook and contemporary relevance.
Learn more about the works and artists they promote and muse how they channel universal aspirations as well as intimate experiences through artistic gestures drawn from a wide range of perspectives and cultural traditions, which express shared desires for human connection and return to the life before the health crisis.
NICODIM GALLERY
Opened in 2012 by daring curator and gallerist Mihai Nicodim, the Nicodim Gallery is one of Bucharest’s top contemporary art spaces, with a “big sister” gallery in Los Angeles. While it shows both international and Romanian artists from all generations, its focus is firmly placed on young and emerging artists with the aim at promoting new talent and stimulating the local contemporary art market. The public is always lured by cutting edge and top-of-the-line exhibitions that bring Eastern Europe into the spotlight.
Mihai Nicodim opened his first gallery in Los Angeles in 2006 and from 2012 he is also present in Bucharest. He was one of the first advocates of what came to be known as the Cluj School, comprising artists like Adrian Ghenie, Ciprian Mureșan and Șerban Savu, that borrowed its name from the big city in central Transylvania where the group's members studied and made their first steps toward international recognition.
#Episode 5: Nicodim Gallery
About the exhibition:
DEMOFLASH II
Artist: Razvan Boar
May 28 – August 1, 2020
Razvan Boar’s DEMOFLASH II exists as a divided whole—two rooms, two realms of consciousness.
The first room is a massive free-form mural, completely executed in an oxygen-heavy blood red. Line drawings of partially-remembered comics by Andrea Pazienza and Herluf Bidstruf flirt with and defile matchsticks and Roman columns; a giant, male deviant with a phallic, dripping nose weeps at an apparent admonishment from an emaciated Mickey Mouse; an ample-bottomed woman seated on a tree stump somehow balanced on a powerline turns her back on bold letters spelling “RAZVAN” to consider a painting of a knife and the number 8. The sheer amount of visual information is a direct challenge to the narrative structure typically associated with the comic characters that populate the walls in the room. The words in the bubbles they speak are literal red herrings, cajoling the viewer to focus on semantics when The Big Picture is all around us.
Improvised drawing, for Boar, is The Big Picture, the language on which his practice is built. He calls this TOTALCOMMUNICATION—the ability to confront and convey his influences, nostalgia, joy, depression, grapplings with art history and his own role in it all at once, at maximum volume.
About the artist:
Razvan Boar (b.1982, Lugoj) lives and works in Bucharest, Romania. Boar recieved his education from the National University of Arts in Bucharest, Romania. In 2019, he was artist-in-residence at EESAB Bres. Recent solo exhibitions include Demo Flash, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain, Brest, France (2019, solo); EZ Valley, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles (2017, solo); STUMP LUNCH, Ibid Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2015, solo); and Cameo, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York (2013, solo).
Find out more about NICODIM GALLERY:
Website: http://www.nicodimgallery.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/nicodimgallery/?hl=en
