No.7 / July 2019
Mihai Plămădeală, art critic – article published on Tribuna magazine, no.290/1-15 of October 2014
The Cultural Center “Palatele Brȃncoveneşti” Mogoşoaia organized in 2014, the great exhibition of Marian Zidaru, “Angels, Thrones, Voivodes”, an event held from July to October. The five spaces of the historical Cultural Center (Palace, Watchtower, Monastery Kitchen, Ice House and House of Arts) hosted by turn segments of Zidaru’s visual project, scheduled since 2012 to be put in space simultaneously, starting in autumn. A combination of objective factors determined the modification of the initial calendar, the exhibition being advanced and rethought in a consecutive structure. I will not insist on the dates and intervals corresponding to each exhibition moment of the suite, what interests us is something completely different.
Although a retrospective approach has been talked about and is still being discussed, I do my duty of honor to inform the reader that we are dealing with a personal exhibition, major in size, concept and importance, but in no case retrospective, because most of the artworks from this Mogoşoaia exhibition have not been exhibited publicly before, being made in the time interval between the previous exhibition and the one we are referring to, in other words, during the last seven years. The same formal and thematic line, identity factor of Zidaru’s brand, the continuation of previous series, works and installations that oppose the tradition to modernity, as we have become accustomed to, but still another exhibition, a new one.
Another mention is that in the exhibition there are some works of Victoria Zidaru, who always expose, in a way or another with her husband, Marian, even if her presence is sometimes illegible for outsiders. Following a discussion on this topic with the two, I will refer further to the exhibition rather than to the division of labor within the team they form.
A first question I ask is whether the two Zidaru have already said everything they had to say in the visual field, or whether their artistic discourse is still in the process of crystallization. In this regard there would be arguments for both hypotheses. On the one hand, the iconography remains the same, of sacred inspiration, as well as the manner of approach, on the other hand, the relations between shapes and concepts put together continue to surprise, even if in many situations in a contradictory manner.
The secular component is constantly present in the so-called Zidaru religious representation guide, that proposes traveling or road angels, in the idea that the connections between the seen and the unseen are not broken, but also bombshells, because “not everything that falls from the sky is an angel”, if we quote the authors. An interesting mix of ideas, but also of materials or techniques. They are a living visual language, with articulated laws of composition and a complex morphology. The elements with which they operate may have interchangeable functions from one work to another, depending on the proposed context, but the opposites survive well at the installation level. We also note that the works created by Marian Zidaru are visually resistant regardless of where they are exhibited, whether a historical site, museum of contemporary art or post-industrial hall (an example being the exhibition from the former foundry of the “Combinatul Fondului Plastic” in Bucharest, in September, this year).
A distinct chapter is that of the materials used, which play a particularly important role in their artistic work. Wood, used mainly in volume works, is associated with plastic, pigment or even electrical installations. A reasonable percentage of Marian Zidaru’s artworks involve using sockets, e.g. the fountain where a video montage with running water can be watched inside or the installation combining a compressor and a fluid pump. The stake is by no means a morphological one, what matters is the idea, always of inspiration or with sacred references.
Drawing and color are present both in artworks, both applied to objects. The text often appears in their field, having a double function: aesthetics and reinforcement of some ideas represented by visual means. The way in which Marian Zidaru avoids tautology is related to an intuitive thinking system and at the same time to a special sense of measure. The artist invents structures, mostly composites, always starting from pre-existing forms, in principle loaded with theological or traditional meanings. The result is a series of assemblies, installations, sculptures, objects or two-dimensional images that are modern in their entirety and traditional in parts.
Avoiding irrelevant details, ritual simplification and preservation of the playful spirit are just some of the strengths of the corpus of artworks conceived by Zidaru. For example, the (angelic) wings were sometimes provided with discs assimilated to wheels or with various elements of technical origin, obvious references to navigation systems, the readymade bucket or the hose can be associated, as they were, with the monolithic sculpture, while the map of Romania, which has become both an object and a mechanical reproduction, finds its place in specially designed and made boxes.
The Mogoşoaia exhibition comes just in time, being exactly what the artist wanted. The context offered by the Palace’s ensamble, all the more so as 2014 represents a special year in the Orthodox calendar (year of the Brâncoveanu Christian Martyrs) and in the history of the place, is the best moment to leave the workshop, after several years of artistic activity outside the ramp lights, to paraphrase a famous phrase.
I find the same and always different Marian Zidaru, an artist who starts from the area of academism and reaches that of intermediality, relying on the continuity of the traveled path, a path that does not bypass the strictly personal expression, nor the realm of folk creation. This could be the alchemy of the artistic discourse he practices, one that is equally coherent, consistent and personal.
