Author: Luminița Apostu Toma

Between October 3 and November 30, 2024, the Borderline Art Space Gallery in Iasi hosted the exhibition “These are not drawings” by Dumitru Gorzo. As a curator invited to take over a seemingly enigmatic project (the initiative to make a Gorzo Continuous Studio in Iași, transformed, due to the lack of a space agreed upon by all parties, into a regular exhibition), I had the surprise to discover a man and an artist who changed a lot my perspective on the ways of working and exhibiting.

To mark the closing of the exhibition in the same tone as its announcement (the extensive interview in the Culture Supplement that revealed the chest of institutional monsters), we sat down for a few minutes to recap the experience of the unplanned collaboration and the double premiere (the first solo show of Gorzo in Iasi, his first exhibition exclusively on paper).

Luminița Apostu Toma: Dumitru, how did you feel after your exhibition of stencils from Iasi was ready to be shown to the public?

Dumitru Gorzo: Like after almost every exhibition, strange. You feel like an attempt, but what kind of attempt is not very clear. Since we are talking about new works and a new project, I am not surprised. Authors also need some time to spend with the newly released craze. But you, Luminița, how did you go through the story of the paneling and the construction I did step by step?

L.A.T.: It was exactly the panning I expected, although I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I knew this exhibition had no plan, and my only fear was that it wouldn’t have enough walls. I assumed the surprise of the huge number of works you came to the gallery with. Before the opening, I didn’t feel that the exhibition was ready, but rather that it was just one of the infinite possibilities that would have worked perhaps just as well if we had ten more galleries and as many days to set up.

D.G.: I also see the exhibitions as propositions assumed from a suite of possibilities that could also be assumed if they found their own time.

L.A.T.: How did you find the situation of opening the exhibition three days in a row, once at the preview, once at the opening and then once more ad hoc? I am asking you this because your exhibition fell into the program of the White Night of Galleries and also coincided with the series of conferences from the project “Lumi ale artei” organized by George Pleșu, a fact that mixed in a funny but somehow tiring way, the audience of speciality with the general public.

D.G.: I took it as a challenge, a challenge for which I was prepared. One of my projects, the most extensive, if not the most serious, Continuous Studio, consists of presenting my personal studio through as many cities as possible, where I work from one to six months with the door open, interacting with all kinds of audiences, from children to pensioners. I can say that I have multiple levels of cultural specialization. I have already gone through six editions; the last one was made together with Lina Țărmure in Bistrita, where there were more than ten events where I had to speak, explain, and, in a way, look for myself facing the audience.

L.A.T.: It means it was good that way. Now, it occurs to me to ask you something slightly existential: How does Gorzo usually experience his own exhibitions?

D.G.: I don’t really live them. Exhibitions are a special working environment, directed especially towards others. I quickly return to my studio, where I start on others or continue.

L.A.T.: I remember working a whole afternoon on a wall, only to have to take down all the work the next day and arrange it once again, completely different. Do you often do this when mounting exhibitions?

D.G.: I still do that sometimes. When something seems to end, you can be sure it will return. No collaboration is exactly like another, and no sketches are repeated. It was an open-design operation done on four hands that resulted in an exhibit, and I’d be curious to know what the head that the other two hands were attached to went through.

L.A.T.: My head, you mean? (I ask because we are talking about an exhibition with dozens of heads)

D.G.: Yes, your head.

L.A.T.: My head went through many curatorial ruminations. We had really assumed that the whole set-up would be dictated by momentum, that it wouldn’t be something precious, that the papers would bend over time, and that, first and foremost, we wanted to like it. Your works arrived neatly and carefully packaged to claim a place in front of the public. Some have their ends cut or disassembled, even like stencils, placed on the wall almost ostentatiously. Honestly, did you really like it?

D.G.: I will answer you like pop Susu when he was asked by the bishop if he loves God: “I think so.”

L.A.T.: What do you do now with the hundreds of stencils left in the workshop? I understand you wanted to dedicate the few months you worked on “These are not drawings” to working with paper and the stencil technique. But do you feel like you’ve explored the topic enough? Will you approach it again?

D.G.: Some stencils will be destroyed, and others will be transformed into new works. A few, quite a small number, will be well hidden and presented when their time comes. I wanted to exploit this technique to exhaustion. That didn’t happen, so I’ll get back to her.

L.A.T.: But will you return to Iași?

D.G.: For sure.
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The exhibition Dumitru Gorzo: “These are not drawings” took place at the Borderline Art Space gallery in Iași between October 3 and November 30, 2024, curated by Luminița Apostu Toma.