The exhibition “THESE ARE NOT DRAWINGS,” signed by the artist Dumitru Gorzo, opened at the Borderline Art Space in Iasi. Curated by Luminița Apostu Toma, it explores the complexity of stencil technique and installation, challenging us to reconsider traditional notions of drawing and artistic reproduction.
“In the workshop of any artist lie postponed, deprioritized or simply unripe projects. Everything is repeated, everything has been done before, everything is déjà-vu when you work with the image and when you expose it. There are, however, certain kinds of images that bear repetition without losing relevance, just as there are, at the same time, reproduction techniques that condition the visual representation, pushing it towards simplifications and synthesis. For Dumitru Gorzo, such a project materializes in Iasi, in an exhibition of stencils. […]
Taking the form of a wall installation, the exhibition fills the whiteness of the gallery with an antonymic experience: immersive and distancing, overwhelming and breathable, amalgamated and minimalist. The materialities and the unfolding in different directions and intensities of the several hundred printed sheets of paper transport you as well between the pages of an almanac as at the edge of the thorn forest where every tendril can hide the dragon.
Gorzo’s project at Borderline Art Space is not Banksy, and it is not Perjovschi; it is not street art or guerilla art and no documentary archive; it is not laboratory work and no art history textbook rebellious gesturalism. Blown and (un)blown stencils in a variety of textures on a variety of paper surfaces are something else, but most of all, they are not drawings. They are extensions, reiterations and reconsiderations of the drawing, transforming the stencil from a replication technique to one of knowledge and exploration, whereby working with paper can still generate surprises, completing the artist’s inventory of anthropomorphic beasts and apropos. ” (excerpt from the curatorial text)
Luminita Apostu Toma
Dumitru Gorzo is one of Romania’s most challenging and innovative contemporary artists. He shares his life and art between Bucharest and New York. He is recognized for the diversity of his techniques and approaches. He changes his mind often and works hard. Born in 1975 in Ieud, Gorzo has built an impressive career both nationally and internationally, exhibiting in numerous individual and group exhibitions. He created his own vocabulary around his projects, often referring to his projects as gorzolans. They range from painting and sculpture to interventions in public spaces, often using collage elements and unconventional techniques.
Gorzo’s projects, often controversial, manage to discuss current topics and challenge their viewers. He studied painting at UNArte Bucharest. From 2008 to 2021, he lived in New York, where he had his main workshop and was represented by the SLAG & RX Gallery. This presents him as an artist of tensions and fusion between techniques worthy of jazz improvisation, with which he defies the taxonomies of the art world. Between 2021 and 2023, a suite of projects in Romania allowed him to spend most of his time in the country, returning to the US in early 2024.
The exhibition is open until November 30, 2024, and admission is free. Borderline Art Space organized it through the AltIași Cultural Association. It is part of the “Inactive Community” project, which AFCN co-financed.
