TEODOR GRAUR: HEART > Drugs and Feelings
27.05 - 29.07.2023
Opening: 27 & 28 May 2023, 15.00 - 20.00
Sandwich Offspace (Malmaison Studios)
Exhibition open: 27.05 - 29.07.2023
ASPA CARDIN, ATORIS, TOLURA. And: KARBIS, ATTACKING. Or: DETRALEX, SORTIS, and the next ones: TROMBEX, CONCOR, ANXIAR; following: DETRALEX, CAPTOPRIL; ROSVERA and AVACOR… Mysterious at first sight, these names instantly reveal themselves to those over 50, already familiar with the most common medicines for blood pressure and cholesterol, for the maintenance of blood flow and the vascular system.
Tapping on his experience as a graphic designer with analogous methods in the 80, when large-scale sign boards were his favorite specialty, Teodor Graur turns these names into a new series of posters that make a positive, abstract, and even desirable sight out of heart medicine. In contrast, his watercolor series Fruits and Vegetables pin our attention towards the concrete, figurative, domestic realm.
THE HEART - a favorite target amongst warriors, a special offering for gods, a source of energy, housing for feelings, or simply a handy emoji - needs constant maintenance. Work-out devices invite us to test this muscle that contracts rhythmically throughout its whole life, opening up the possibility that we might need to train our emotional abilities alongside the physical ones. Empathy, understanding, altruism - and so many more activities of the heart, alongside the classical love - need, as any mechanism does, constant exercise, supervision, and trickery.
Teodor Graur (born 1953) is an artist who has made a lasting impact on Romanian contemporary art since the early 1980s. In his early artistic expressions, he employed performance as a means to voice his opposition to the totalitarian system of that era.
In the past decade, Teodor Graur has undergone a significant artistic transformation driven by a deeply held conviction.
Consequently, he has moved away from using narrative representations like photography or painting and has wholeheartedly embraced spatial construction and object design. However, since 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he has returned to the more traditional medium of watercolour, creating a series of precise paintings depicting primordial objects within reach or sight, such as fruit or the moon.
Throughout this artistic evolution, Graur has remained steadfast in his preference for installation as his primary medium of expression. His work has been showcased in prominent galleries and museums, including the MARe Museum of Recent Art (2020), the National Museum of Contemporary Art (2014), Sandwich Gallery (2022), Sector 1 Gallery (2021), Nicodim Gallery (2016/2017), Plan B Gallery (2016) and tranzit.ro/ Bucharest (2014).
This event is part of the Program “Sandwich Meta Club”.
A cultural Program co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund.
