Cătălin Davidescu. ”It's a period that still needs to be documented and reclaimed.”
Cătălin Davidescu, b. 1955, art historian
“After 1980, when I already worked at the Craiova Museum of Art, I managed to find some more sources of information. The US embassy would send copies of the Sinteza magazine to the Museum which was very important for a provincial town, so I would lend them to my artist friends. Thanks to Constantin Brâncuși's works, lots of artists and critics from around the world would visit the Craiova Museum of Art, so I got the chance to meet the sculptor Isamu Noguchi and the art critic Dore Ashton. This is also how I got a hold of a prized book that I still have to this day, American Art since 1945, as well as Norbert Lynton's The Story of Modern Art.” (Cătălin Davidescu)
1. What American art exhibitions did you see between 1965 and 1989?
I lived in Craiova, so I only rarely visited Bucharest, staying with my cousin Dan Cioca, who was a set painter at the national TV station. When I was just starting high school, he was the one who molded my first artistic points of reference. He was an adept of non-figurative visual discourse, so of course he admired American art and didn't pass up on the chance to take me to the American art exhibition in 1972 that set the art scene ablaze, especially the young '70s generation. I was a teenager and a neophyte, so I don't remember much of what I saw except for the picture on the cover of the catalogue and a pin with the same picture: a pen nib with the American flag on it, which I treasured for many years. However, I can still vividly remember the emotion I felt then and how much I admired that phenomenon which, although I didn't understand, I was convinced was something special. I was impressed with anything American anyway because I had a classmate who had spent his summer vacation in the US, staying with his father who worked at the Romanian embassy and he had told us all about that amazing experience from the perspective of a provincial adolescent. We were fascinated by the stories we heard about this equally dazzling and dangerous world. I can still remember the propaganda that told us young Americans drank "Coca Cola" and, not knowing what that was, we thought it was both tempting and "scarely". This was before Romania started to produce "Pepsi Cola" which, like chewing gum, blue jeans, and later Marlboro, Camel, and other cigarettes, was the first clear victory of American imperialism over international communism.
2. Between 1965 and 1989, did you see American art in Romania or abroad?
I didn't see any other American exhibitions until after 1989. After 1980, when I already worked at the Craiova Museum of Art, I managed to find some more sources of information. The US embassy would send copies of the Sinteza magazine to the Museum which was very important for a provincial town, so I would lend them to my artist friends. Thanks to Constantin Brâncuși's works, lots of artists and critics from around the world would visit the Craiova Museum of Art, so I got the chance to meet the sculptor Isamu Noguchi and the art critic Dore Ashton. This is also how I got a hold of a prized book that I still have to this day, American Art since 1945, as well as Norbert Lynton's The Story of Modern Art. And, also at my cousin Dan Cioca's place, I got to look through a bunch of older issues of the Art in America magazine; I have no idea how he managed to find them.
3. Which American artists and what American approaches/trends/styles interested you at the time?
I was interested in hyperrealism and neoexpressionism, inasmuch as I could find information and images related to them. The early '80s tempered the experimentalist tendencies of the '70s for a while because Romanian art and society became increasingly closed off by political forces which made themselves more incisively felt. Understandably in this context, art that didn't comply with the "highfalutin indications" of political directives gained prestige. Painting and sculpture, often with a religious undertone, produced by consecrated artists like Horia Bernea, Marin and Paul Gherasim, Sorin Dumitrescu, as well as Sorin Mitroi, Apostu, Gorduz, Neculai Păduraru, etc. were aspirational for young artists. The experimentalist discourse also quickly began to re-actualize with the subtle, but unwavering push of Ana Lupaș, Șerbana Drăgoescu, Ion Grigorescu, Geta Brătescu and so on. But the mainstream belonged to a more conservative line compared to what was being produced in Western art, mainly focused on painting, sculpture, and graphics. And in this respect, neoexpressionism, whether of the American or German bent, was a good way to express revolt and resistance against a dictatorial regime. Religious themes were also seen as a form of resistance, a way to preserve identity in spite of the atheist discourse which, though formal, was terribly incisive and propagated through all media channels. The loosely connected art world had begun to cling to postmodernism which was sufficiently lax to accommodate everything, and to the "transavantgarde" endorsed by the art critic Achille Bonito Oliva, whose writing would circulate in prints, copies, or simply orally. Experimental discourses, especially photographic ones, were subtly censored in the sphere of professional art, as amateurism was loudly endorsed, especially in photography. Anyway, the experimentalists were mostly from Ardeal, Banat, and especially Crișana, with the Oradea group. I think the Art magazine played an important part in spreading information and forming cohesion among the '80s generation of artists.
4. What position did American art and visual culture have in the artistic milieu you frequented at the time; was it a topic of conversation, was it influential?
Please compare it with the influence of European art or art from communist spaces.
In the milieus I used to frequent, I think the '80s generation was mostly interested in European or European-adjacent art, meaning de Kooning, Baselitz, Lucien Freud, and the ecological experimentalist Hundertwasser, whose exhibition I saw in Bucharest. Naturally, American artists were also important. Names like Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, and others were well known and their work was admired, but they weren't seen as role models. As far as the art from other communist countries goes, it was less known, as is the case to this day.
5. Retrospectively, do you think that American art and visual culture were a decisive factor in your development as an artist/theoretician?
I was influenced by American art, but it wasn't a decisive factor in my development, nor in that of the artists and theoreticians of my generation.
6. Did the American art exhibitions organized in Romania during that period contribute decisively in this sense, or did the information you had about American art and visual culture in general contribute more to this impact?
I think the American art exhibitions that took place in Romania and the information we got about American art somehow did contribute to the shape of Romanian art.
7. Do you remember whether the presentation and reception of American art and visual culture were encouraged by the communist regime?
Of course not. The only kind of artistic discourse that was encouraged was that of official exhibitions brought in from "friendly" countries that had the political approval of the organizers.
8. Was being a sympathizer of American art esthetically/ideologically/politically risky?
I don't know if it would have been esthetically/ideologically/politically risky for me to be a sympathizer of American art, but it definitely would have led to social marginalization.
9. Retrospectively, do you think the influence of American art and visual culture on Romanian art and visual culture between 1965 and 1989 contributed to the transformation/development of Romanian culture and society? If so, in what way?
Rather than visual arts, it was American music and literature that contributed to changes in Romanian art. Postbellum Romanian art, up to 1989, was marked by European art, whether French or, later, German or British, but of course American art too, where names like Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell, and so on were well known and liked. In the '80s, contrary to the previous decade, information travelled more slowly, foreign art catalogues weren't being imported anymore, except Russian ones from the Aurora publishing house, so information could only be obtained in roundabout ways and was spread like in the olden days, meaning you shared it with people you thought were interested. The fact that there was a relatively large set of artists of those generations that managed to save themselves is proof of their curiosity, cohesion, and motivation to not repeat the sad experience of the '50s when, out of either conviction, fear, or opportunism, artists complied to the demands of politicians. Unlike the '70s generation, who had short intermittent periods to rest easy, the '80s generations had no illusions, but was determined to protect its freedom of expression. This is why it sought refuge in neoexpressionism, sometimes in faith, and in wild, primal experimentalism, which clearly expressed its attitude of revolt. Those that are still around from that generation and the previous one saved themselves through the honesty and violence of their language, and especially through talent. It's a period that still needs to be documented and reclaimed.
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