Hosted by Scemtovici & Benowitz Gallery, in collaboration with Galeriile Rădulescu, Galeria Romană, and Sineva, the exhibition “Companionship. On Clay and Sky/ Însoțirea. Despre lut și văzduh”, curated by Gilda Ghinoiu, brought together paintings, drawings, ceramics, and sculptures by Silvia Radu and Vasile Gorduz, two leading figures of contemporary Romanian art.
Establishing a dialogue between two artistic practices and two converging spiritual trajectories, the exhibition explored the relationship between primordial matter and the original image. Through the use of materials such as clay, stone, and plaster, Silvia Radu and Vasile Gorduz developed a visual language of essentialization, in which form is reduced to its fundamental expression, while matter becomes a bearer of memory and meaning.
“In the presence of the objects created by Silvia Radu and Vasile Gorduz, words crumble. They become sound signs without context, fleeting appearances that can no longer anchor the meaning of discourse. The research process showed me that certain fragments of reality cannot be described through words. The creations of these two artists are such fragments—they do not ask to be spoken about; they require only presence and an attentive silence, a silence in which the work takes possession of reality and fully inhabits the space. Today, when we encounter their art, we do not merely admire the outcome of their efforts; we enter the realm of a shared visual memory. Companionship. On Clay and Sky can be read both as a lesson in archetypology and as a journey through the layers of memory embedded in earthly materials transformed into works of art, whose force guides the gaze toward the sky and propels the human within us into the air.
The exhibition traces the convergence of two artistic and spiritual destinies, brought together through a visual language rooted in the purification of form and the recovery of the primordial image. By turning to primary materials (clay, stone, plaster, etc.), Silvia Radu and Vasile Gorduz develop a visual language of essentialization, in which volumes are shaped so that the images inscribed in matter operate simultaneously within both the contemporary and the ancestral registers.” (excerpt from the curatorial text)
