Ioana Vlasiu. ”I think American literature and film were far more well-known than visual art.”

 Ioana Vlasiu, b. 1943, art historian


1. What American art exhibitions did you see between 1965 and 1989?

The American art exhibitions that took place in Bucharest 

1969 - The Disappearance and Reappearance of the Image – American painting after 1945, Dalles Hall. 

1972 - The Form and Process of Creation in 20th Century American Painting, Dalles Hall.

1972 - New American Sculpture, the American Library.


2. Between 1965 and 1989, did you see American art in Romania or abroad?

In Romania.


3. Which American artists and what American approaches/trends/styles interested you at the time?

Abstract expressionism.

Minimalism, which I discovered indirectly through Brâncuși's influence on some of its exponents. The interest in Brâncuși led to translations of some American authors' books about him being published – Sidney Geist, Athena Tacha, Spear. 

In 1970, I interviewed Geist for Literary Romania, as a special guest of the Brâncuși exhibition at the National Art Museum in Bucharest. Naturally, we talked about Brâncuși and about the minimalists, who he didn't admire too much, but also about Paciurea's drawings which Geist discovered at the Academy Library. 

Among the Romanian art critics, I think Dan Grigorescu was the only one who published books on American art with up-to-date information after he spent a few years in the US.


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.

I think American art was less known than European art, but that probably changed from one generation to the next.


5. Retrospectively, do you think that American art and visual culture were a decisive factor in your development as an artist/theoretician?

NO.

I think American literature and film were far more well-known than visual art. 

I, for one, read a lot of Faulkner, Hemingway, William Saroyan, Salinger. There were a lot of translations. I saw a lot of American cinema, both old and new, at the Cinematheque. I remember John Cassavetes's film, Shadows, he was an independent filmmaker, we didn't know he would make film history; the movie wasn't screened in the city, but I can't remember where I saw it. For a while, I'd see films that weren't being screened in town at the Scientists' House where Ion Cantacuzino, a film historian who worked at the Institute of Art History, organized closed-circle film screenings. 


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?

The Brâncuși exhibition at the Art Museum in Bucharest in 1970 was exceptional, the biggest until then and up to now, with lots of works on loan from great American museums. The exhibition was made possible by the good American-Romanian relationship at the time and Nixon's visit to Bucharest. 

The political context of that exhibition was recently dissected in all its detail, based on archival material, by a young English art historian. 


7. Do you remember whether the presentation and reception of American art and visual culture were encouraged by the communist regime?

For a short time, it was permitted and frequent-able without any apparent risks. 


8. Was being a sympathizer of American art esthetically/ideologically/politically risky?

I don't think so.


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?

That would be an overstatement. 


April 2023


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