MIHAI RUSEN: No Man’s Land
04.03 - 10.04.2021
photos by Dan Vezentan
MIHAI RUSEN: No Man’s Land
We assume we live in post-war times, in which war is actually ubiquitous, of soft means. Anything can become weapon, weaponry, anything can be granted fighting value. Khaki color is a commentary, a symbolic gesture of this weaponizing process. Between domestic artifacts and military artifacts there is actually an unclear distance. No found or retrieved object is ever truly recovered anyway.
Mihai Rusen makes objects whose connection to the past is insecure: a past that is appropriated, ambiguous or definitive? A domestic, military or self-made history? Metalic profiles, indispensable from elements of garden furniture - tables, benches, gas fixings, segments of fences - are embedded into the practice of the present. Alongside, war witness-objects, mass-produced, with contemporary esthetic qualities thanks to their high quality of both engineering and materials, are neutralized through the use of color and placement.
This No Man’s Land takes shape on a surface which is, in its turn, equally unclear, neither unoccupied, nor lacking interest, neither raw earth, nor concrete slab. Built artifacts appear and disappear amongst crossbeams, gravel and weeds, totally out of place and in perfect agreement with the place.
Mihai Rusen’s works, mainly sculptures, are informed by archeology, architecture and anthropology. In his practice, he connects personal histories with traumatic memories, through objects and fragments of objects found through an active process of research in former battle areas. He is a university lecturer PhD at the National University of Arts in Bucharest.
This event is part of the Program “Sandwich Club 20-21”. A cultural program co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The program does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The AFCN is not responsible for the content of the program or the manner in which the results of the program may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.
