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Andrei Timofte: LET’S TALK ABOUT PLASTER AND CAPITAL

Public talk. Facebook and videostream.ro

28 november 2020

At the invitation to make a public presentation of my own artistic practice I chose to talk about two of the personal research conducted in 2019: THE CEMENT PLASTER FINISH WALL OF A PETIT BOURGEOIS and the project ARTIST, I BUY AN APARTMENT IN THIS BLOCK! both curated by Florin Bobu and Livia Pancu. The online presentation of the two projects represents an opportunity to discuss extensively and in an appropriate framework about their cultural and personal foundations. At other times, they aim to present to the general public other visual materials that formed the basis of the artworks.

Started since the doctoral studies, both researches culminated with the organization of exhibitions by the organizers of the larger projects Concurrent Narratives and the Culture Class, organized by the association 1+1 and tranzit.ro/ Iași. The research on „calcio-vecchio” plaster-based mural techniques related to the modern socialist aesthetics was exhibited through interventions in the former gallery tranzit.ro/ Iași (which was then located at 7-9 Al. Lăpuşneanu Street, Iaşi), being implemented and in the transposition room of the Mural Art specialization (FAVD, UNAGE), while the illustrations, through which I analized the relation between simbolic and real capital, were exhibited in the aparte gallery of the partner institution.

The common intrigue of the two projects is the personal interest towards the object of studing the decorations present in the apartments built during the socialist period, which became according to my life experience and the curatorial suggestion a "class-marker" after the '90s so-called transition. My artistic intention was to bring into question the association between the gesture of refining aesthetic preferences - defined by the cultivation of taste; and beeing part of to the middle class. My concerns about the two subjects - plaster and capital, were juxtaposed with urgent aspects of personal life: the proffesional desire to experience a lost and disapproved technique because it belongs to the socialist ideology and the harsh conditions of purchasing an apartment under current capitalism.

Short bio:
Andrei Timofte (born 1988, Bucharest) lives and works as an artist and teaching asistant in Iasi, Romania. He has a doctorate degree in visual arts, at the “Faculty of Fine Arts and Design”, UNAGE, Iasi, where he developed a theoretical thesis and an artistic research project on the topic of The Social Factory of Desire: Work and Cultural Memory of the Creative Industries after the 90s. Since 2010 he has been an active member of the Satellite group together with he recently opened a cultural production NGO. Recentely he participate at The Exotic Plants exhibition (July-September). In 2019 he exhibited „ARTIST, CUMPĂR APARTAMENT ÎN ACEST BLOC!” (ARTIST, I BUY AN APARTMENT IN THIS BLOCK!), part of „Culture Class” project, and „PERETELE DE CALCIU AL UNUI MIC-BURGHEZ”/ THE CEMENT PLASTER FINISH WALL OF A PETIT BOURGEOIS, part of „Narațiuni Concurente” project, which were both curated by Florin Bobu and Livia Pancu, and organized by 1+1 association and tranzit.ro/ Iași. In 2020 he participated in the Electroputere Air 2020 residency program, organized by Electroputere Craiova Gallery. In 2017 he participated together with the writer Ovid Pop in the Artist-in-Residence residency program Q21 organized by MuseumsQuartier (Vienna, Austria), with a scholarship supported by tranzit.ro.

This is part of the multiannual project RESEARCH. PRODUCTION. DIALOG / CERCETARE. PRODUCTIE. DIALOG that is taking place in 2020/ 2021 and is realized with the financial support of Iasi City Hall through the Programme of financial support of Civil Society projects from Iasi, law 350/ 2005, related to grants from public funds supporting not for profit activities from Iasi City Hall budget.