Milky Naylon (cotton, organza) unique ed. 1&2,3 (2016)
Frugalitas, Severitas, Fidelis - Tranzit Bucharest (2016) , exhibition view
Frugalitas, Severitas, Fidelis - Tranzit Bucharest (2016) , exhibition view
Abacus chair (metal, dye, printed canvas with artist's photo as pioneer) 80x42x40cm, 2016
Frugalitas, Severitas, Fidelis - Tranzit Bucharest (2016) , exhibition view
Frugalitas, Severitas, Fidelis - Tranzit Bucharest (2016) , exhibition view / Olympics carpet (linoleum flooring, cotton) 148 x 218 cm (2016)
1.00(ten) video 3’ (2016)
Frugalitas, Severitas, Fidelis* / Installations, Video (2016) - Tranzit Bucharest, 2016
Adelina Ivan, Nicoleta Moise Curator: Raluca Voinea
Adelina Ivan and Nicoleta Moise present in this exhibition two projects in dialogue, each reflecting with different artistic means on 20th century fetishes of discipline, exercised with predilection upon women’s bodies. School education, sports competitions and workplaces were all testing grounds for training the body and its desires, for turning it into a productive machine approved by society. One’s own memory of childhood on the one hand, official images hiding in libraries on the other provide to the two artists the pools from which to extract and re-stage the image of these disciplined bodies.
Adelina Ivan’s project 1.00 (ten) is evoking the figure of Nadia Comaneci, the gymnast who amazed the world and who enthused little girls in their aspirations and in their games. Nadia’s was the time when the human body was outsmarting technology and perfection could be attained by discipline rather than drugs. In a short film that is to premiere at this exhibition, Adelina Ivan recreates the moments when girls were playing “the Olympics”, only that for the contemporary protagonists the game is mediated by the description of what it was like. A field that has lost its aura and is currently shaken by painful confessions and scandals – gymnastics appears for Adelina Ivan’s characters as any other game, a graceful pretext for playing. Other exhibited works that are part of this project remind of Adelina Ivan’s formation as a designer while also framing commonplaces of memory for those who went to school during socialist years, from the abacus to the pioneer uniforms and the hierarchical braids. Yet, the artist is not giving in to nostalgia, she is not recycling memorabilia but instead turns her own memories into new objects, which original meaning has been lost for the younger generation, as in it is not needed anymore, as in it has lost its consistence. Just like the pioneer shirts are no longer the milky nylon uniforms but have become ethereal, with time evaporated from their threads.
*Frugalitas, severitas, fidelis are the three virtues of the Roman goddess Disciplina, a forgotten deity venerated mainly by soldiers.