Interview with Ada MUNTEAN: “The message is there, like a subtle insert, available to anyone who is honestly open to receiving an artistic object”

Ada Muntean is a visual artist, independent curator, and cultural journalist. She graduated from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Graphic Department, a bachelor’s and master’s, and in 2019 she obtained a doctorate in Visual Arts with the thesis “The human body as an image and instrument in contemporary art. Identity hypostases from existentialism to transhumanism”.
Her artistic discourse is built around the experiences and challenges of contemporary man by exploring multiple mediums and forms of representation, from painting to drawing, photography, video, and installation.
Her first solo show, “Coordonate ca tu să visezi/ Coordinates for You to Dream” took place in 2012. Since then she has exhibited constantly both in the country and internationally. The most recent solo shows are: “Mediating Illusion. The Temptation to Exist”, Estopia Art Gallery, Lugano, 2022, “Fragments from a Life I don’t Remember”, Camera K’ARTE, Târgu Mureș, 2022, “Réalités corporelles: des identités incertaines”, French Institute, Cluj- Napoca, 2021, “Corporealities. Uncertain Bodies”, Estopia Art Gallery, Bucharest, 2020. She currently lives and works in Cluj-Napoca.

You graduated from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, the Graphic Department, bachelor’s and master’s degree, and in 2019 you obtained a Ph.D. in Visual Arts with the thesis “The human body as an image and instrument in contemporary art. Identity hypostases from existentialism to transhumanism”. To what extent has your academic experience helped you in your artistic evolution and the development of a personal style?

The academic experience has played an important role through the cultural and social openness it has offered me, mediating meetings with many professionals in the field, both from the country and outside it. The university environment has created a context of learning and experimentation that over time helped me in my artistic evolution. In my first years as a student, I felt an emulation and a competitive atmosphere that gave me the necessary motivation to push my limits. What I can say is that I understood from a very early age that it takes a lot of dedication and work for this, with tangible results appearing over time and as a consequence of constant concern for art and all that art-making entails. The stage of doctoral studies gave me the respite to learn and work more in the field of ​​my areas of interest and to deepen a certain way of understanding things. What was extraordinary about this final period of studies is that I was able to access two Erasmus scholarships that allowed me to explore the artistic and cultural life in two cities that have always fascinated me: London and Berlin. Looking back, I realize that the openness that the academic environment gave me was a very big chance in my evolution as a person and an artist.

When did you feel that your purpose was to be an artist?

My parents had an important contribution in opening a cultural horizon for me, through which I could make contact with any form of artistic manifestation: theater, film, and visual arts. Thus, they awakened an attraction towards this area that I later cultivated on my own, sometimes becoming almost an obsession. The desire to make art appeared in my childhood, around the age of 10 – more precisely from the moment of a visit with my father to the creative workshop of a family friend – a visual artist. I was fascinated by the fact that he had created a world for himself in that space, it was unlike anything I had seen before. I found it by far the most challenging thing I could do, to be an artist and have my studio. I was a very curious child, but one who got bored quickly and always needed something new. Everything related to art always kept me engaged, because I felt that it was an activity that could not be finished and allowed infinite solutions and interpretations. I have never liked math and exact subjects because they only allow one answer with certainty, and the idea of ​​certainty paralyzes me.

You are a visual artist, independent curator, and cultural journalist. What attracted you to the curatorial and editorial field? Do you prefer making art, curating exhibitions, or writing about artistic manifestations on the local art scene?

I prefer to make art – curating and cultural journalism emerged as necessities and sometimes consequences of certain contexts. The fact that I am perhaps more pragmatic, with some organizational qualities, led me to occasionally assume the role of curator. I like to think of exhibition concepts, visualize them in space, to imagine possible relationships and dialogues between the works of certain artists. It is a spatial scenario, stressful at times, but it satisfies me. When I prepare a group exhibition as a curator, I mentally consume myself more intensively than when I prepare a personal one. When it comes to the works of other artists I feel a much greater responsibility than when it comes to my works. I think like a practitioner, not a theorist, and I think this is shown and felt. And I am also writing from the perspective of a practitioner. The need to write and analyze came primarily from a need to put into words a conception of art that I have always considered quite cerebral. A characteristic that I have sometimes been told would be a disadvantage in a field that by excellence starts from a predominantly sensory approach. But I took this cerebral approach because I also like the analytical process, not just the intuitive one. Of course, I also operate on intuition, but ever since I know myself I like to dissect reality and look at it from multiple angles.

Exhibition view Sabotage.Deconstructing The Unforeseen, Solo Show Ada Muntean, Camera artist run space, Centrul de Interes, Cluj-Napoca, 2018

What are the most fascinating and challenging aspects of your day-to-day work as an artist/curator?

I think the most challenging aspect in this field is the acuity of observation, which must always be trained and kept active. Even when I am not in the studio, I am thinking about certain aspects of a work in progress or imagining future works. I have a special section in my phone where I spontaneously write down ideas, word associations, and possible titles, in the event that I can develop them further in personal experiments or curatorial projects. From my point of view, the constant concern for the work process contributes to the coherence of the artistic approach.

How would you describe your art and how important it is for you to convey a message?

I have wondered many times over time why I continue to make art, to produce all kinds of objects for which over time I had to become ingenious in order to find adequate storage space. I think it is a way of coping with everyday life. Working in the studio has also become a defense mechanism in the face of a reality that sometimes overwhelms me. I don’t do it therapeutically, because I don’t relax by making art, but on the contrary, sometimes it involves a pretty serious psychic and emotional consumption. It gives me meaning in a way that makes me want to wake up the next day and remain curious in spirit and attitude. As for my art, it is often directly or indirectly connected to certain experiences I have lived, but not in a descriptive way. The message is there, like a subtle insert, available to anyone who is honestly open to receiving an artistic object.

Exhibition view Negotiating Reality, Ada Muntean, ETAJ artist run space, Bucharest, 2021

One of the main themes you explore in your works is the experiences and challenges of the contemporary man. When did this topic become of interest and what encouraged you to explore it further?

In contemporary art, self-referentiality is extremely common: many artists’ art, even if one does not work in a direct way – is about oneself. I explore the challenges of contemporary man because I have faced them and I can work only on something I know and am familiar with. I think it is important to have a sincere starting point in any artistic action.

What are the stages of your creative process, from the idea or source of inspiration to the final artwork? Do you prefer spontaneity or do you put more emphasis on research?

Here it depends on the project I am working on, there are situations in which spontaneously ideas come to me and I carry out the works quickly, and there are situations in which I do little research, especially when I conceive a series of works or curatorial projects. For the latter, I research to what extent – around the subject I want to address – exhibitions have been made and in what form. I extract my ideas from different sources, unscheduled, I archive them and when the opportunity arises, I develop a direction for one of them. In recent years, as a way of working, I start several compositions at once, because I have noticed that I work better like this, I somehow keep a fresher perspective on them. I work on one composition, I put it aside, I continue another, and on. I generally start with photography and photomontages and get to develop individual works or series in several techniques: drawing, painting, photographic transfer, collage, and installation.

When do you know you have finished an artwork? Tell us more about the whole experience until you are fully satisfied with the result.

I know I have finished the artwork when, both technically and conceptually, the form it has reached becomes satisfactory as a stand-alone object or can work within an existing compositional configuration. It may or may not coincide with the initial projection I had of it, the important thing is that the final formula satisfies me in one form or another. Anyway, I am very rarely fully satisfied, I think that is why I work a lot quantitatively.
It is difficult to rationally explain the actual moment when you realize that a work is finished: it has to do with the balancing of the elements, the created atmosphere, the compositional proposal, and the contextualization of the work. It is like when you feel like you are in love, you just know and don’t feel the need for a justification anymore.

Exhibition view Corporealities.Uncertain Bodies, Solo Show Ada Muntean, Estopia Art Gallery, Bucharest, 2020

Very often when entering a contemporary art gallery, the audience is faced with the famous question is this art?; Why do you think art today is a challenge for the viewer?

Today’s art is a challenge for the viewer for many reasons. An important one is the existence of an artist – Marcel Duchamp, who in 1917 exhibited a urinal in a gallery and turned it into an artistic object. The change in the function of a daily object in the work of art caused a paradigm shift in the process of art perception. Context creates art, and the artist has the ability to hijack, and transform the purpose of an object and integrate it into an artistic process or artistic work. The context of the perception of the object is extremely important, the exhibition space creating its reception frame.

The paradigm that Duchamp proposed is essentially deeply existentialist: the artist, as the supreme court, with total freedom of decision, creates art from absolutely any palpable, and the context he proposes (exhibition space, gallery, museum) transforms that object into an artistic work. Duchamp desacralized the concept of artistic creation, questioning all artistic values unanimously accepted and validated until then, in a world eroded by a war (World War I) in which God is absent, which he considered only an invention of man. Thus, contemporary art was born at a time of the dissolution of the old concepts about value, tradition, morality, and sacredness, considered irrelevant in the context in which they could not stop the triggering of wars that irretrievably dehumanized man.
From my point of view, this is the main reason why contemporary art is a challenge and generally “unfriendly” for the viewer: it is not necessarily just painting, it is not necessarily beautiful, and is not predictably displayed on a wall.

Your first personal exhibition, “Coordinates for You to Dream” took place in 2012. Since then you have constantly exhibited and entered the international artistic circuit as well. This summer you had a solo show in Lugano, Switzerland. How do you feel about the Romanian art scene today? How much has it evolved? Has public interest in art increased?

The art scene has certainly evolved and expanded, more and more galleries and independent art spaces have appeared, brave initiatives of people who are actually tired of waiting for a context of visibility to appear for them. In the end, they created it themselves. Let’s say that the public’s interest also increased, there were large-scale events that attracted both the general public and the specialized public. But still the precariousness and lack of real support, of an infrastructure to support the cultural sector in a concrete and long-term way – affect the continuity and longevity of certain projects and cultural spaces that appear and disappear with far too great a frequency. In recent years it seems to me that more and more artists understand that perhaps the best way to attract a community around them is to organize an artist-run space and some events that involve in one way or another the public space as well.

You have curated a series of exhibitions, the most recent being the group exhibition Studies for a Burning Silence at Hangar F, an artist-run space in Alba Iulia. Tell us broadly how the whole process unfolds, from establishing the curatorial concept to choosing the artists and the exhibition space, and how much do you intervene in the way of displaying?

The curatorial concept develops according to the interests and concerns I have in a certain period, whether it connects to some personal experiences or social events. Thus, the sources of inspiration gravitate around both an inner and outer reality. The artists I choose are usually people I have collaborated with before and with whom I felt I could build something. Also, in almost every project I invite one, two, or maybe even three new artists, with whom I work for the first time. I follow what is happening on the artistic scene in Romania and I am aware of the careers of many professionals whom I admire, whether they are just starting out or already established.

The choice of exhibition space is also important, even crucial in building a project. I usually design an exhibition already knowing in which space it will be mounted, and the discussions around the works are also related to how they will be displayed in the space. One more important aspect: I like artists to design works specifically for my curatorial concept, so the preparation process for the exhibition is quite long, sometimes it can reach a year. I don’t play it safe, I don’t go to their studios to select something existing or ask them to send me images from their portfolio, but I challenge them to create new works, starting from my statement. In the end, I do the installation of the exhibition and the compositional establishment of the works in the space in agreement and together with all the participants in the project.

You recently had a solo show at the Camera K’ARTE in Târgu Mureș. Please tell us more about the exhibition and how it was received by the public in Târgu Mureș.

The project at Camera K’ARTE Târgu Mureș was thought and discussed a year before it actually took place, and, working progressively, it became an exhibition with a more special meaning for me. Beyond the fact that I feel honored for the chance to exhibit in a space with an impressive archive of events, the completion of this exhibition marked a very intimate process of introspection and self-radiography. The project explores “small rooms” of my psyche that are constituted as fragments of memories or impressions of memories that come like an unexpected insertion, of a smash cut in the present in order to question the decisions I have made, of the experiences I lived, mentally projecting a possible future. The public in Târgu Mureș received the exhibition very positively, the opening was really a context for dialogue and exchange of ideas.

Is there anything you would love to experience, but the right context has not yet emerged?

Yes, I would also like to do some performance work, but a suitable framework has not yet appeared, nor do I feel ready to do performance work yet. But performance is definitely on my bucket list.

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