On Wednesday, April 22nd, starting at 6 PM, /SAC @ MALMAISON opens the exhibition “Șantier” by Dumitru Gorzo, curated by Alex Radu, with a graphic/exhibition design by Ioana Naniș, Cristi Matei & Justin Baroncea.
“Șantier” is the fourth exhibition with Dumitru Gorzo at /SAC and the sixth we have worked on together over the past ten years. Although I have always felt that it is more natural for me to curate group exhibitions than solo shows, I feel comfortable doing so for an artist whose practice I have been so closely involved with. This long-standing collaboration has also afforded me a privileged vantage point from which to observe how, for Gorzo, the concept of “șantier / construction site” can become a metaphor for a creative process in a state of perpetual experimentation, and of how Gorzo often transforms the exhibition space (with the rigor/structure and force/disruption of a real construction site) into a living studio, as in the “Continuous Studio” series.
Defining for Dumitru Gorzo today is both the (re-)drawing or updated reworking of intangible yet vibrant, contorted forms – full of visceral/embodied tensions and energies – as in a “de-abstracted abstract expressionism” (Justin Baroncea) – as well as the performative action within the creative process and the artist’s active and continuous curiosity/wonder regarding materiality, which becomes a co-subject – are important to the significance of his art. “Șantier” presents new works, created specifically for this exhibition, featuring a technical innovation stemming directly from the artist’s preoccupation with materiality as a subject. The perception of the works balances like a dance between the narrative of anthropomorphic (re-)figurations and the expressive and narrative potential of the interplay of multiple pictorial planes co-present on the same surface, creating new depths.
A new moment of intensity in Gorzo’s ongoing relationship with his work/creation, the exhibition “Șantier” at /SAC @ Malmaison takes shape as a captivating/primed, ephemeral, collaborative station/construction, centered around a laboratory phase (of “gorzolănii”). – Alex Radu
The exhibition can be visited until August 1, 2026.
