Kunsthalle Bega presents the exhibition Ghost Geometry, artist Cristian Rusu, curated by Diana Marincu, in conjunction with ”Different Degrees of Freedom”
“The artist Cristian Rusu has been following for several years the subject of ‘ghostly’ spatial geometries that influence our perception and thinking, highlighting the structure of the visible universe as a framework that deserves to be dismantled and rebuilt, through site-specific projects responding to a certain context. Looking at the tensions between physical and sensible space, the artist has chosen a direct conflict with the exhibition space – the industrial hall built where Kunsthalle Bega was inaugurated in 2019 – with its architectural identity and with our own preconceptions or perceptions. The alternation between full and empty, horizontal and vertical, large and miniature draws in space a series of escapes resulting from the set of constraints with which one usually works. This volumetric drawing can be a map of freedom, of the search for the sublime and, simultaneously, a reordering of a way of looking.” (Diana Marincu)
"My dialogue with the space is a polemical one, in which, starting from the morphology of the exhibition space, I try to destabilise the given architectural order, through volumetric interventions. From the very beginning, I perceived the Kunsthalle Bega space as extremely visually challenging: a complicated space because of its structure (size, architectural structures, geometry). That's why I decided to overbid this psycho-somatic pressure to maximum saturation. Through this installation, I also continue my research on the approach to the sublime (beauty, fascination and fear) in a contemporary context, as well as my melancholic gaze towards the admiration of the ruin that I see as an engine of my artistic meditation. The installation is a personal intervention in the Kunsthalle Bega, as well as a space reshaped for the upcoming exhibition Diferite grade ale libertății / Different Degrees of Freedom." (Cristian Rusu, 2022).
Cristian Rusu′s project is the largest in-situ intervention in the Ghost Geometry series, produced by Fundația Calina through Kunsthalle Begaand it is part of ”Kunsthalle Bega School - space for creative and educational projects (second edition, 2022)”, co-financed by the Timișoara City Hall through Timișoara Project Center within the priority program "Repere în cultură".
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Cristian Rusu (b. 1972) is a visual artist and scenographer, PhD lecturer at the Faculty of Theater and Film of "Babeș-Bolyai" University in Cluj. His main artistic research consists of the questioning of space and in his melancholic meditation on ruin and the sublime in a contemporary context. Through various visual arts techniques and combining spatial and architectural concepts, he interrogates the interplay between aesthetics, sensibility and ideology, mainly through site-specific projects.
Following the spatial intervention proposed by Cristian Rusu, the exhibition Different Degrees of Freedom will be installed at Kunsthalle Bega in January, involving 12 more artists from Romania and from the international scene, who will reflect on the two fundamental aspects on which art is based: physical freedom and mental freedom.
Artists: Andreea Albani (RO), Ștefania Becheanu (FR/RO), Andrei Bucovanu (RO) Mircea Cantor (FR/RO), Ștefan Curelici (RO), Judith Fegerl (AT), Adrian Ganea (RO), Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien (FR), Sebastian Moldovan (RO), Ciprian Mureșan (RO), Cristian Rusu (RO), Sinta Werner (DE), Anna Zvyagintseva (UA)
Diana Marincu is a curator and art critic, artistic director of the Art Encounters Foundation in Timișoara, member of AICA and IKT. In 2017, she received the title of Doctor from the University of Arts in Bucharest, Department of History and Theory Art, and in 2022 Diana won the Bega Art Prize, an invite to create an original curatorial project at Kunsthalle Bega.
Media partners: Radio România Cultural, Revista ARTA, Zeppelin, igloo, Observator cultural, Modernism.ro, Propagarta, IQads/SMARK, Renașterea Bănățeană, Agentia de Carte.ro.
Institutional partners: Universitatea de Vest din Timișoara, Kerber Verlag, Facultatea de Arte și Design, Inspectoratul Școlar Județean Timiș, Organizația Salvați Copiii Filiala Timiș, Fundația Herczeg, PUNCH, Biblioteca Pavilion, Sfera Timișoarei, The Institute, Asociația Niciodată Singur.
Sponsors BEGA, Egeria, PINTeam, ELECS Group.