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Abstract
This paper explores the means and ends to which textiles are employed by contemporary Romanian artists in their intermedial practices. The history of textile arts in Romania’s cultural-political sphere has received little academic attention in studies dedicated to recent history. The argument put forth is that tapestry, rugs, and other textiles associated in the past with undervalued housework or folk art—and ranked as a lower form of artistry in the artistic hierarchy—are reinvested with political, critical, and mnemonic meanings. The first section addresses the convoluted relationship between textile arts and Romania’s communist era during Nicolae Ceauşescu’s regime by highlighting the ways in which the authoritarian state supervised and controlled the production of so-called folk textile art to political ends. The next sections elaborate on the artistic production of Geta Brătescu, Ana Lupaş, and Ion Grigorescu, all of whom produced contemporary textile art—often derogatively called “applied art”—whose meanings and purposes eluded the official requirements of national folk art. In the last section the paper scrutinizes the political, critical, and artistic comeback of textile arts as cultural memory since the fall of the communist regime in 1989.
Notes
1 Christine Brown, On Romanian Textiles (Lecture 16 June 2012). Available at: https://rjohnhowe.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/christine-brown-on-romanian-textiles-part-1-the-lecture/.
2 The interdisciplinary qualitative methodology draws upon visual anthropology, memory studies, cultural studies, art history, and cultural history.
3 “Transmedia art” refers to multiple ways of telling a story or narrative across a variety of media (not only literature).
4 For more on the preference of artisan artists over professional artists during Ceauşescu’s regime in Romania see Alice Mocănescu, “National Art as Legitimate Art: ‘National between Tradition and Ideology in Ceausescu’s Romania.” Paper presented at the Conference The Contours of Legitimacy in Central Europe: New Approaches in Postgraduate Studies, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, May, 24–26, 2002. http://users.ox.ac.uk/∼oaces/conference/papers/Alice_Mocanescu.pdf.
5 “Conceptual art” is that type of cultural production where the idea, meaning, or concept of the piece takes precedence over the execution, materiality, or form of the artwork.
6 Copia di Ana Lupaş/ P. 420 Portofolio (Contemporary Art Gallery P. 420) Accessed January, 7, 2018 http://www.p420.it/it/artisti/lupas-ana.
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Maria Alina Asavei
Maria-Alina Asavei is a lecturer in the Russian and East European Department (Institute of International Studies, Charles University, Prague) and senior researcher in the Primus Research Project titled “Beyond Hegemonic Narratives and Myths: Troubled Pasts in the History and Memory of East-Central & South-East Europe” (Charles University). She is also an independent curator of contemporary art and material culture. Asavei is a former honorary research fellow of the City University of New York, where she conducted research on artistic collectivism, and of the American Research Center in Sofia, where she conducted research on “Cultures of Resistance in the Balkans: Folk Art and Visual Politics.” She has published articles and book chapters for: Sternberg Press, Studia Politica, Oxford University Press, Art & Education, Journal of Modern and Contemporary Asian Arts, ARTMargins, Lithuanian Journal of Anthropology, Journal of Twentieth Century Communism, Journal of History of Communism in Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, Memory Studies, Politics, Religion & Ideology, and Journal of Aesthetics and Culture. [email protected]