Dan-Raul Pintea graduated in 2004 from the Faculty of Fine Arts, the graphic department of the University of Arts and Design in Cluj-Napoca. After completing his studies, he worked as a technician at the graphics press and as a pre-press operator in a textile printing company. After three years he resigned and decided to pursue his passion for art. In 2012 he created the concept of Dragoste (Love). He began writing Dragoste on T-shirts with a marker. Now he uses the printing techniques he learned in college to multiply the Dragoste logo on T-shirts, hoodie blouses, jackets, nets, and hats, and in 2020 he opened his art gallery, Dragoste Gallery.
Please tell me what art means to you?
My way of being, my way of feeling, of expressing myself, of thinking…. through it I manifest myself. It is an environment where I feel good and it allows me to open up, to show my things or the project I am working on or my vision of a problem or things or the world.
When did you feel that your purpose was to be an artist?
I do not know if I felt it, but it manifested itself before I became aware of it, I liked to draw. I think other people said that…” when they were little they were drawing”, yes, in fact, all the children draw, more or less encouraged by the environment, by the entourage, by the school. This education, parents. I was… supported, I was lucky to be supported and encouraged by my family and I think the first contact with this awareness since you realize that you like art, to be an artist or you have something to do with this field, was when my father moved me to the High School of Art, in the eighth grade towards the end. I did not know what to do then, but I think he decided for me that I wanted to be an architect. He was with construction and thought it could be a father-son combination, like that, construction- architecture. But… I discovered art (laughs) and went in the other direction. That is my encounter with art. From there I discovered myself.
Your dream was to make art, open a studio, and have your own space in which to exhibit. You have made many sacrifices to follow this dream. Please tell us what your journey as an artist has been.
Yes.
The sacrifices have been since I was moved to the High School of Art, from there they started, tutoring, drawing, drawing a lot at night because during the day it was the classes, and the classes, and the subjects, and because I knew I needed a thorough direction then I spent time at night with the drawings. And there. I discovered another world somehow, which… it will hardly be combined with the world we live in… depending on what… things can be similar or that can bind us, which… how you can coexist with it, or how you can live in one and the other, or both. That thought one thing, to say, important when I decided to do art, I tried to work in other fields after I finished college and saw that I could not be at work and make art. So I had to choose one of them. And then I chose, in 2007 when I moved from Cluj, I quit my job and I said: I do just art. I do not know anymore, I think I have deviated a little bit from the question. Or I walked a little bit…
(You chose to make art and for a good period, you made great sacrifices. You lived daily on a budget of 5 lei, money from which you bought food and materials.)
Yes. Well then it is good, we have got it right. That moment when I decided to make art, I woke up and that I have nothing, that is, I start from zero. I did not know how to do it, nor how to apply it somewhere for projects, submissions, open calls, exhibitions, galleries, who they are, collectors, how you sell works, how you put bio, how…
And all this I discovered like this… on my own, to say the least. But I was lucky with the White Night of the Galleries, which was the first edition then in 2007 and somehow when being in Cluj it was an artistic environment, exhibitions were made, but I exhibited after, no, I moved right after I exhibited at NAG, but someone noticed me and helped me after two years when I returned to the artistic scene, until I reprogrammed, rewired, I made a kind of 7-year plan, that some people warned me that it was going to last and I prepared myself both mentally and nah physically, materialistically, no. So, not having any funds, I ended up having that famous budget of 5 lei. I just said: ok what I don’t have or what I don’t need as objects, I don’t know, snowboard board, a TV, things that I no longer saw relevant, that did not help me for my purpose. I made a kind of platform @vandtot and put up for sale items, knives, and books. The library, there I had a lot of art books and I said there too, it was something like this: ok so until now I’ve learned from books how to make art, how to be an artist, I’ve seen others how they managed to make art, I don’t know what painters, Impressionism, rebirth, Da Vinci, all of them, but it was their life, and then… and I want to have my way as an artist, and I don’t need any more books, how can everyone tell me how to do it, I had to create my path and it became in itself a concept, that is, I don’t want to know about the other artists who do so and so, and I don’t want to somehow become a clone or.. that was their way, they discovered, I have to discover my way. And yes, books helped me, classes, meditations, xerox after all the artists. Somehow the money that I invested then, now I have recovered, passing it on to others who want to become an artist or learn about art. So everything is recycled. And I also discovered this recycling thing, and it helped me a lot in what I was going to do next, which is @hartiemanuala, another concept that I developed over time. I started making art on various objects because I didn’t even have money to buy them. I had no material money. I was doing what I found on the floor: wood, tin, iron, I don’t know, cardboards. Or someone would give me, they would hear that I needed it. I mean, they had more energy, because they were also related to what I was feeling at that moment or what I was going through, and they kind of came from the universe: look, I’ll give you, you just want to do it.
What is your relationship with the artistic environment?
The artistic environment is there. When you get into it, you get to know different people, make contacts, and collaborate with gallerists and artists. And… this relationship was created over time. I told you, I started with NAG then, I met the organizers, I tied a close friendship relationship, I kept in touch, and even in time, after ten years, she wanted to organize NAG in other cities of the country, and among them, she appointed me in Sibiu to organize, to take care of the White Night of the Galleries in Sibiu. And look, what you create over time, communication with people who have the same vision or direction, that people feel the energy then. That is the most important thing. For the artistic environment, to be you, to perceive the other what you do, what you want, what your concept is and that it is not necessary, that everyone has a different vision on and when you interact like this somehow certain directions in the art are connected, an artist should not be upset if he is not accepted by I don’t know what gallery, or that he is not understood, or he is not received, or the gallery is not exhibiting him, or why the gallery is exhibiting the same artists. There are simply visions that bind together
Yes, the artistic environment. That world that I discovered, I was like, in parallel with the world that we live in, and it is a world that develops according to the artists who exhibit, the exhibitions that are made, that energy that is created around an idea, a concept, a direction that we take and somehow it is what is inside of us. And it expresses itself, and we discover it at different artists or places where we go, and it is like we are dissociating ourselves a little bit from the world that we live in. And then, having discovered this artistic environment and through the exhibitions, at least at the beginning, yes, after that in college, and after I have finished, there are three different levels. After you finish, you also need to … I mean, and you expose, and you start wanting to support yourself financially from your art, and you start living then — another stage. That is when you create such a connection between the artist -gallerist -collector and it is such a game that you create. The others or the galleries or the space see you, find you, or someone hears of you from someone or they see you through I do not know what interviews and somehow they understand your vision, they want something, to expose you or to find out more about that thing that you are trying to express, that is why it is better, as an artist when you have a clear vision of something. What do you mean… who needs to see, understand, and try to find out more or expose your art. The problem was with the sale, I mean, the artist exposes…. ok, but he also supports himself from art, and we all know… it is very hard to live from art. But here is the connection of the artistic environment between all three elements the gallerist, collector, and artist: how the gallerist manages to sell the artist. How the artist can say that thing best so that the gallerist can understand, and how he somehow can please the collector, the gallerists have certain collectors, well I go into details, what I noticed in time, but somehow I did not find myself in this circuit, because certain things were required to respond to the collector’s taste … he likes it that way… do it to me like that… look, that artist did so… it is more successful like that.
And… no, I searched. Yes, I love interaction and communication and connection with artists and gallerists, but I have also tried to find my path.
You have collaborated over time with important galleries of contemporary art. How much do you think they have influenced your artistic career?
Look very well it ties in with what I was talking about before, that is why I collaborated, that is how I started. After I started doing art, after choosing a path, in 2009 I was offered a collaboration with the National Art Store La Ota, which helped me a lot, and I sold works there. There I came into contact with Anca Poterașu Gallery and I was offered a collaboration for about two or three years, like this, I collaborated with Anca Poterașu Gallery…… And that’s why I was saying with the expectations from an artist or the direction that I had not yet formed, maybe even the gallery did not have exactly, being also at the beginning, a direction and then I thought it was better to take it on my way and then I came up with the Dragoste brand and I said ok, I do what I want, I do on my own, I try to promote myself, to succeed by myself. That I saw that some things, not necessarily by Anca Poterașu Gallery, but by others as they see you and you know best what you can capitalize on from yourself.
Please tell me how the Dragoste concept came about and what does it symbolize to you?
That is when it appeared….. at that time when I was doing exhibitions with everything with bio, with promotion, with openings, I was also at art fairs outside, but it was not yet a kind of artistic world, yes they were, but few as well as to buy, no. Just to assimilate, to ingurgitate art, they liked it but it did not carry on what I wanted and that is that many artists have other jobs besides and they can afford to make art so somehow not as a hobby, but in their free time, or I was supporting myself from art. And then I wanted after the exhibition to sell and the works were not sold. And then it was kind of frustration or so this transformation of my desire to live from art, from what I like to do. Out of passion, it turned into the word Dragoste, which one night, I can say, a manifestation on a wall somewhere, a hug at a party with the world, love, that is, I was hugging people and saying dragoste and it was synthesized in my mind this word, how important it is and all the essence of everything I want in it. I started writing it on the T-shirt and it became my creed, it somehow became the verbalization of my interior, the exteriorization of it in this word, which contained exactly my direction. And I separated myself from the gallery and I started on my own, writing Dragoste and slowly I introduced it to art, to exhibitions, it started more underground, after that, I registered it at OSIM because at some point someone wanted to imitate, to steal, to copy, and I say it went from the underground to the formalization of the brand. Here, I want to mention Eugen Rădescu, who saw my concept from the start and understood it and promoted me, and supported it in the exhibition, then it was the Pavilion, it was a kind of space in collaboration with BRD, and foreign artists were promoted, and contemporary art on another level. They also organize the Bucharest Biennale, so it was the best springboard for me. There I sold the books, many of them, and with that money, I bought materials, caps, and T-shirts and I was able to make my ideas, various concepts ideas: Dragoste written on the notebook or the cherished green label. So Dragoste was already manifested in several directions and several models and with the help of the exhibition, I was able to start so slowly. After that at the fairs, after the festivals, on the ground I was sitting, I was putting the T-shirts on the grass, people were passing by and finally, I managed in 2017, when I was at a contest of projects in Cluj, for the artists to launch what they had in mind and I won the project. On the jury was someone, Noemi Meilman, who saw my project and bought me some T-shirts. Andreea Esca saw it at Noemi and from there I got to Romania, te iubesc!
And that is where that burden stopped, let’s say between 2013 and 2017, those 4 years that I oscillated and it was very hard to find the money for materials and everything. Since 2017 I have been sitting quietly and have been able to implement my ideas. Being many orders, I did not cope in the first year, I was one. I think for a year I kept making t-shirts, that is how much it was and that is how I was able to raise gallery money and in the pandemic in 2020 I opened the Gallery. And that was it.
How was the project received by the community from Sibiu?
Sibiu helped me a lot, even before I opened the gallery. And at festivals or parties or various cultural events, they already knew about me, they knew I was working, they contacted me on Instagram or Facebook, and they wrote that they needed this or that. Even from certain political parties, there were people. A T-shirt arrived at Dan Barna at one point, who is also from Sibiu. Someone gave him a gift. A lot of gifts people take and order for someone or weddings. And DJs and important people, I mean, I liked that whoever found me were people who were on that vibe, they found me, and I never had any problems with people who, I do not know, tried to trick, meaning I have always had great people who came to the brand and chose.
Currently, how is production going? What is the interest?
You cannot maintain it as it was when a lot of people suddenly found out. It cannot always be like that, because I do not have the energy to do either, that is, it exhausted me. After I had that year, I had to take a break for a year or two, so slowly to leave it easier, to take care of my personal life, to do other works, to do art. I did not have time for anything. So it is not really like that, it is not ok either, because you are like a battery, you have to recharge, and you do not have that energy all the time. The energy, those years, I put it then and now it is leveled. It is enough to take care of my personal life, to have one, to have an artistic life, to do work when I feel the need; it is not that pressure anymore.
Look, I made another studio because things have advanced so much that the techniques and everything I use now had no place in the old studio. Now I have invested in another workshop, I have invested in the gallery, I am working on several levels, and I have got the company, so I have tried to share my energy in all areas, not just in this one area, and now you know what it is like, one day someone calls that they want a work of art or that they want a T-shirt or a handmade paper or, you know, that is…. it comes from everything now, not just from one direction and I like that it is balanced, it is right now.
How much time do you spend in the studio?
If it is after the new studio, which is an attic, now at the moment I do not spend time there, because I still did not unpack everything, but a studio I have, let’s say in the kitchen because that is where I do @hartiemanuala. And in the bathroom.. when I sit in the bath and think about ideas, and in bed as well, or when I eat, or I have a 2 m bed in which I also have things, in which I make the T-shirts, the desk is next to it, so I could say that all the time I constantly think about work, ideas, works, I do all the time, but to spend like this, when you do something, when I come … I do not know, if it comes to me, sometimes I get a project or an order, a few minutes. If I do not feel like I have the energy that I have to put there or the necessary state, I do not do it for a few days, if not after that I can stay all day long because I let my projects and things somehow do themselves and then if I have the energy for them, which I build it on the days when I do not do anything, that day I put it all there and it comes out like anointed everything. So I adapt. That is, I go a lot on the emotional and the states, and the feeling.
At what point of day do you create best?
I had a phase before when I worked at night, I ended up developing it so much that I worked until 7 a.m. and went to bed when the others woke up and woke up when the others went to bed. So I was exactly on the other side, but now I have also found my balance in everything financially, emotionally, and sentimentally and everything. I am really good at the moment on all levels. I wake up in the morning, I go to bed, I do not know, at 12-01, normal, now I live normally, I work normally, I eat normally, healthy even, that is, compared to how I had the budget before with 5 lei, now I can say that I passed on fish, vegetables, I am very much on fruits, that is, not unhealthy anymore. I had irregular nutrition and that took me…. even during the pandemic, I also had time to do some analysis, I do not know; fix it, everything I have damaged in those sacrifices. I had to do that and I knew it was going to lead here. I knew I was going to suffer like that. And about two years it took me to fix myself. I resisted, but it did not go long, I did not do it much like that; the luck was that I managed with my art and with the projects and everything, to restore my balance and now, to live super healthy. I realized this other side and I started to take care of myself, I gave myself a lot to art and now there is a balance between these two.
We live in a capitalist society that emphasizes production, consumption, profit, and success. You sell, you are a successful artist. Do you consider yourself a successful artist?
Not. I am even trying to stay low, I do not stand out so much because recently I have discovered intimacy. I just want to get into the moments and the energies that are just positive.
And success can be seen in many ways by society and it has certain requirements from you and the pressures and I know, how I got rid of that pressure to be successful, just… being successful it saved me from the pressure. I preferred not to be there all the time and stay here somewhere. And the gallery, I do not have a schedule, although some people on Google maps wrote that it is closed, and Google wrote to me: we have to close it because all said it is closed, and I just wanted to say it does not have a program, I left a phone number, and whoever wants it, when he wants to, comes there privately. I mean, I am sitting with that man, with that energy, there at that moment and we are talking. I do not stay here every day because during that time I can do other things, I can use it in art. Anyway, I said to them, I mean I am staying more at the studio and I am working there, and I am going to the gallery when I have something to say, to present; I have new work, I put it. That is why I do not even go on the concept of exhibitions, openings, or… I am more interested in interaction, relationships with people, and energy contact.
But you said something before success. No, no, I prefer it to be, I have, I maintain messages, the relationship with people who order things or want certain works or something from me. So I do not focus on the product, on the marketing, on the mainstream, on everything that is believed to be successful or to do something that brings money. I am trying to be something that is in everyone, we all find it, we all have it there and it is between people and I want to do something better through this thing that unites us.
Very often when entering a contemporary art gallery, the viewer is faced with the famous question is this art? Why do you think contemporary art is a challenge for the viewer?
Ah, the viewer has the vision or what he sees depending on what he assimilates or accumulates along the way, that is why it may differ in how he sees art when he enters the art space.
And that is exactly why I am, like that, somehow hidden, come discover me, and depending on the people what they want or what they are looking for so I know they can find me and I rely on this energy. That whoever is looking for this vibe that I am in, finds me.
But there are certain preconceptions about art, but that is on levels. The stages you go through, and the knowledge you accumulate can open up this world that I entered, I said I entered high school and I saw two worlds, the more you want to know about yourself through art, the more art helps you a lot. An ordinary man, no. Through it you get to relate to the works, to ask yourself questions about yourself, if it is, how you perceive it, it helps you, the exhibitions, the artists, the various, the diversification, the diversity of art, the expression helps him to have a notion or a perception about it, and then, in general, came to me the people who had knowledge in the field but it was also a challenge for people, I want that now, that is why the positioning in front of the bus stop and I sometimes look at them and how they read what I write on the frontispiece there in the commercial. Some of them come in, they look curious. Someone else today, as I said to you: “I finally caught you”. I mean, I also pursue communication with people who have no connection with art. And in exhibitions and at other gallerists I saw that it is in this direction where: “an artist should be as profi as possible”, very famous, they do not give the chance to emerging artists and I wanted to go in the other direction, in which knowing how hard it was for me, how many times I was refused at first by other galleries, other applications. Something I knew I needed, a meal, a place to sleep, money after or while I was staying there, money for the road, which are simple things an artist needs to be able to live, was not much, but I did not have from where to get the money if I did not work somewhere else. That is what I tried to give to the first artist that I exhibited here, and to the people who come to the gallery; I wanted them to experience art from a different perspective, that is, to be something more human, more intimate, more…
I do not want to follow the same pattern: glasses of wine, I run away from those things, from cookies, from the invitations, I mean I want to create such an environment,[……] to connect, and I to maintain contact with everyone and when it happens, it happens, when it does not, it does not. I mean, not all the time you have inspiration, not all the time you want to communicate, not all the time you want to expose. Let everything be natural.
Can we consider art whatever an artist does or says? What makes something a work of art?
Can you say one more time, please? I was thinking about what I was saying before. Yes, look, it is a situation like that. You do not even have to be an artist to make art, to have studied, to have diplomas because there are all kinds of directions that you find out and assimilate as you do. I do not know….maybe those studies or the education. Through art, I believe one can…. one can cook, one can drive a certain way, one can make tailoring, one can make music, and one can…. I mean, art is a word by which we find ourselves a medium, something, an essence by which you can say that thing that you want to do and somehow the Dragoste concept is also that road, that consequence of the dream that you did not implement and you did not have the opportunity and you were not helped or supported and you can always get into that. That is why I say that anyone can make art and.. yes, by anything. It is ok. It opens you. Now the direction of the world is this: all the barriers are going to fall, the concept of gallery or museum is going to disappear, they are all going to go towards this development of the self and the congruence of the self of several people, it comes down to a kind of same energy, the same unison and these things that keep you and limit you, the borders will no longer hold you. I mean, it is not going to work anymore. It is going to go a lot on expression and truth, what you say, what you feel, and the other person next to you to support you or say something like: look I am also thinking about it, let’s do that and make a better place. I mean, that is where it goes.
With what attitude should we step into an art exhibition signed by Dan-Raul Pintea?
With the attitude of no expectation, with the attitude of: “ok, maybe this one has seen it before, I know what he does, let’s see what something else new is doing….. now it didn’t, ah.. he did not open the gallery or ah… he is at the studio, let’s call, maybe I want to see what else he does here in the gallery or I’m curious what models he has made or not, in fact maybe I want some handmade paper or wait that he also sells personal items or from the house, ah recycles …. Aa.. ok, ah here are some books…. yes he does it all.” I mean, it is no longer art just that art, you know. it is an art of everything, it has become life and my life is there. I mean, if you are watching something, there are some thoughts: how did I make that paper? I found that napkin there, I had some work to do, and I went to pay the rent, let’s say, and I found a napkin and recycled it. You can find out things about me or how I think through the work that I do, and if it is a work that expresses a t-shirt that idea of mine, then you know that idea, through it I mean something or through that paper or through the book that I sell. So I have a lot of thoughts that express themselves unconventional somehow, at certain times when I come to take them out or I tell them what they are going through and yes, my art now is about what I am going through and for example, I have discovered the tarot or the tarot cards and this concept of the magician. That is why I have a work that I am working on, for example, look, this is something else people may ask me when they come to the gallery: what are you working on? And that is it now, the Magician. And they’re kind of…
I realized all this manifestation that I made to succeed in art and I found elements in time and meanings and symbols that led me to this energy of playing cards and to guessing the future and somehow.. how can you build a future through the power of thought and yes, you can. And I even have a branch of dried avocado that is the magic rod.
So… you are preparing a new exhibition for this year.
Yes, there is an exhibition now at PAV at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival that will take place in June at the end, I do not know the exact date, because they keep writing emails and I am now caught up in something else and I have not gone in yet, I am not remembering the exact date, but I think 20 or something, over there. And the event will last for a month, we are several spaces, which are now for the first time participating at the Festival, thanks to Dan Perjovschi, who proposed to me and managed to finance somehow through the help of Documenta, which is a biennial or triennial, I do not know exactly, like that, which goes on this concept of recycling. I do not know if you have heard, but Dan told me that in Europe there is no longer available a certain dimension of paper to print on it and he even suggested that I exhibit my papers, that he likes these, the handmade papers. I make them out of…. today I was thinking of making the paper from the pan. I took a pan yesterday to make some pasta with someone, with spinach and onions, tomato, and sauce. Super good was it all. And that is what I am saying, you know, I mean, my life is put into every work. And food yes, maybe if it is not this event with the pandemic, or so, we thought, because I am going to expose an anonymous artist and we thought, really who knows, to make a plate of stuff with food like this, on this vibe that I was telling you so far, not wine and cookies. Yes exactly, that is the energy like that.
