No. 24 / March 2020
Mihai Plămădeală, art critic – article published in Observator Cultural, no.168, 2008
PIAR (the acronym of Painting and History of Arts in Romania) is a Romanian art group founded in 2008 by Alexandra Pompiliu, Iulia Florea Lucan, Andrei Berindan, Andrei Ciubotaru, and Mihai Plămădeală (also the curator of the exhibitions and writer of this article). The three guests are Georgiana Bobocel (choreographer), Doina Stan (violin) and Gabriel Bălaşa (percussion), all of them Master of Arts in the moment of writing this article.
One of the hot points of the Bucharest White Night of the Art Galleries 2008 was the Transit Gallery. Coincidentally or not, on the 23th of May, 11 p.m., this was the place where PIAR Group made its debut with the exhibition “CONNECTIONS: Hard Beat”. It was an event based on installation, performance and happening. The installation connected the ceiling to the floor through a modular tube, made in front of the visitors (from already handmade pipeline modules, in a work in progress); it was followed by a performance consisting of poetry, dance and music (live, only on percussion instruments like congas, bongos, darbuka, toubeleki, tambourine and shakers); finally, a happening connected the audience to the installation, visitors being invited and guided by the performers to make graffiti on the pipeline themselves. All under the sign of (hard) beat.
On the 28th of May, the same group openend at UNA Gallery the exhibition “CONNECTIONS: Pipelines”. As stated in the exhibition flyer, the pipeline is, according to the dictionary, an installation designed to carry fluids to great distances, in a certain running. In software, the term pipeline stands for a chain of processed data that make the connection between the operating system and the interface. In order to be functional, a pipeline must be wired at a supplier and a debtor. Anyway, the pipeline system makes the connection between different geographical, demographical, political points.
The volumetric route directed by the PIAR installation enhanced the inner space of the gallery, inviting visitors to look for the ideal observation point. The modules, made in an artistic manner, left at sight the structure and man’s intervention traces. The neutral colour of the pipelines allows the perspective lines to freely develop, while the network preserves (intentionally) a non-industrial, handmade aspect. The cylindrical segments, joint by four connections of various sizes, were made with different materials, techniques, colours and textures.
The point of interest for the five artists and art historians, creators of the project, was the tension between the linear form of the whole and chromatics; between flat representations, applied to the cylindrical surface and the lines reached while assembling all; between the closed form of the gallery and the semi-closed form of the network; between the multiplicity given by the recurrence of the pipeline module and the oneness of the connection, between sharp and unsharp, obtained by means of Op Art or illusionist art.
For PIAR, the pipeline is associated to the cultural corridor between different spaces and mentalities, suggesting the carrying function of the network and highlighting the “spiritual substance” of the fluids that flow in it.
As already mentioned, the events inscribable in CONNECTIONS are based on installation, performance, happening, painting, video or digital art, dance, music and other forms of expression, initiated by the performers as a frame for participants both from inside of the group and from outside of the University of Arts.
The proposed concept is part of the European ideas of the moment. Interactivity, interdisciplinarity, multiculturalism are just some of the themes. Beside the experimental direction, the project aims to develop in education, by further cooperation with schools, high-schools and universities.
I conclude with the words of one of the PIAR members, Alexandra: “This time, we called upon the image of the pipeline as a visual representation of the cultural and artistic interaction through which several European cultural spaces can be put in dialog. So, the pipeline becomes a tridimensional material sign of the communication process. The agreement following this communication process materializes in our case in five mini-installations, in fact artistical pipelines. Thus, communication takes an art shape. The artworks are made from different materials (existing or invented), by different technics and based on different ideas. It is important that every participant keeps his/her own cultural identity. Actually, it is exactly the idea of keeping its self-identity that is fundamental in such a project”.
