Experiment and Community

The majority of young artists working in Eastern Europe in the 1980s was – apart from the rejection of canonized conventions – also inspired by a desire to confront the totalitarian system.

In most cases, unofficial art in these states only existed as an isolated phenomenon that was denied publicity, as an activity of groups either different from or, more often, similar to one another.

Such was the situation especially in Romania, where at the time of dictatorship the young generation that opposed the officially approved art could mostly work underground.

Yet, despite their isolated state and the detrimental geopolitical divisions, at the beginning of the decade here, too, a novel, postmodern sensitiveness reared its head with respect to both content and style, peculiarly merging with other late (post)avant-garde type of artistic phenomena.

Romania soon sported several workshops, all of them named “Atelier 35”: these sprouted one after another and became the hotbeds of progressive and alternative art, collecting young artists with a penchant for experimentation and action.

Rural Atelier 35 centers – in Oradea, Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca, Sfântu Gheorge, Târgu Mures, Baia Mare, Sibiu, and Arad – enjoyed a somewhat greater freedom than organizations in the capital under direct governmental supervision.

One of the most significant groups was Atelier 35 of Oradea, originating in the local youth art club and established in 1984, the members of which in the first part of the decade focused on Actionism, Arte Povera, experimental film and photography, mail art and the Fluxus attitude, and later on new painting, object art, installations and video art.

The attempts at renewing the language and means of art dovetailed harmoniously with the expression of subjective content. Although direct political action was not a feature of the group’s mainstream, they were creditable representatives of an alternative that could be termed “aesthetic resistance”.

By the mid-1990s, as a result of the pluralization of Romanian society, most of the earlier art groups – including the Oradea Atelier 35 – were dissolved. Many of the former members left Oradea, but prior intellectual connections and experimental attitudes subsist.

In addition to presenting the most characteristic artworks of the ’80s and ’90s, the present exhibition in Modem also displays a selection of works created in recent years. Furthermore, the Debrecen show provides an overview of artistic trends in Oradea over the two decades with the help of old posters as well as archived photographs, recordings.