Ivan Gallery presents the exhibition “Performance” between April 14th and May 21st, 2022, an event dedicated to the creation of the renowned artist Ion Grigorescu.
The exhibition “Performance” invites the viewer to enter the intimacy of the artist’s creation, being a chronological exhibition that combines both performance actions from the ’80s, through multimedia documentation, and more recent paintings made by Grigorescu in 2022. The conceptual evolution of the artist is dynamically captured and his works, their deep, narrative character are impressive. Although the exhibits are based on daily activities, to which we would not normally pay much attention, Grigorescu’s vision makes something mundane a subject of self-analysis through artistic transposition.
Visitors can admire a photographic documentary of Grigorescu’s yoga routine from 2011, his spiritual side merging with the physical side, the nude. The artist even allows us to take a look in the privacy of his own home, being on display images that capture the repair of the roof, from 2018-to 2019. The exhibition is multidimensional, having even a video installation. Many other representations of his own experiences, rendered through various artistic media, are waiting to be admired in the gallery.
The event organized by Ivan Gallery is the artist’s first personal exhibition in this space, being a true spectacle of introspection that is worth being visited and contemplating.
Born in 1945 in Bucharest, Ion Grigorescu studied painting at the “Nicolae Grigorescu” Institute of Fine Arts, between 1963 and 1969, joining the Union of Fine Artists in 1971. He approaches the visual from a complex perspective and uses in his expression various mediums: painting, photography, performance, drawing, and film. Being one of the first Romanian conceptual artists, he pursues various themes from both personal and social life, such as documentation of his own body, family environment, and the metamorphosis of society following the replacement of communism with capitalism. The censorship imposed by the dictatorial regime generated constraints on the artist’s career, so that in the ’80s, he gave up public artistic activity, focusing on the restoration and conservation of church murals. Following the fall of the regime, he resumed his activity, integrating into his works references from psychoanalysis, Buddhist philosophy, and Yoga, as well as elements related to Christian-Orthodox spirituality, due to his artistic reorientation in the ’80s.
Photo credit: Cătălin Georgescu (images taken from Ivan Gallery’s Facebook page)
