No. 12 / September 2019
Mihai Plămădeală, art critic & curator of the exhibition – article published in Tribuna Magazine, no.271/16th-31st of December 2013
Following an aphoristic logic (I have in mind an idea from “Aphorisms on the Living Wisdom” of Arthur Schopenhauer), a man can be recommended by his name, by what he has and by what he represents to those around him. Valeriu Mladin is an international European visual artist, who lives and works in Romania. His talent, related to everything that can lay under the aegis of the term techne (τέχνη), cannot be questioned by any viewer, but the whole story of his creation begins right here. During more than three decades of work, Mladin has created a corpus of artworks and projects that say what he has to say in terms of visual sign and more. His wealth – a direct and straight result of the undertaken work – cannot be measured or evaluated and has that rare quality of being able to be divided without being divided. The part maintains, in his case, implicit links with the whole to which it belongs. Finally, if the artist’s vision overlaps, as we consider, with the truth, a truth of both art and ethics, then his work and activity represent a landmark, an axis, an ascending vector, a social model.
The “Political Bestiary” project, materialized in an exhibition opened on November 24th at the Cultural Center “Palatele Brâncoveneşti” Mogoşoaia, involved the creation of a series of portraits with satirical-anecdotal values; human bodies and animal heads. Impeccable suits, healthy fur and, when we refer to the majority of the pigs on display, thick rind. In other words, a collection of scoundrels, or, if the term is too gentle, of political bastards, a codex of vices, hypocrisy, cowardice and incompetence.

However, the stakes of the exhibition are not a humorous one. We are dealing with a militant act. The only way of struggle with kitsch, in our case an attitude kitsch, is to denounce it. The artistic component is extremely important in such an approach, being a supporting factor for an idea that, otherwise, we all know. We would compare Mladin’s action with Goya’s, obviously only as an inner spring, by no means as a form.
Our politicians can continue to sleep peacefully because in the “Political Bestiary” exhibition, as in this text, no names are given. None of those who inspired the iconographic cycle will be recognized in the images, instead everyone will have the impression that they have identified their colleagues, friends or opponents. Valeriu Mladin’s animals seduce, leading the viewer to the point of sympathizing with them. The idea is that the artist draws animals in charcoal, and the men and women in politics make money in the context of a general corruption that unfortunately appears to be normal. Beyond the direct social criticism and the adoption of the society, which fully deserves its chosen ones, I remark the carnivalesque component, the upside-down world, the behavioral masks and the protection of anonymity.

I must say that in art, as in life, things do not appear out of the blue; there is always a “before” that determined the coordinates of the present relative. Valeriu Mladin returns periodically to the political and social subject. He depicted the elected president Barack Obama with cocoa added in acrylic base, the White House as a zoo, even the famous Mengele and the list could continue. I retain the coherence, consistency, courage, but also the intrinsic value of the projects developed by Mladin, which transcend the conjunctural. Reality only plays a catalytic role.
Even if I insisted, as author of this article and curator of the exhibition, on the Romanian dimension of the bestiary, it must be pointed out that just as the life of the idea is unlimited, so too, the political animals in the present writing of these lines at Mogoşoaia, transcend the East European space. Whether we recognize the dictator, the plagiarist, the bully, the incompetent, the Stalinist, the ridiculous, or the insignificant atheist bastard, we can be sure that people everywhere will identify as sincerely and selflessly their chosen ones or impostors.

Returning to our lands, however, the artist, creator of heritage, is far from being in a position appropriate to his dignity and social importance. Valeriu Mladin, like other true artists, assumes the freedom to say things by name, leaving to others the appropriate compromises and tips, just as politicians must bear the burden of getting rich in dishonest ways. I initially wanted to say illegal, but since the laws are made and broken by them, it made no sense to march on that term. I end somewhat arbitrarily by reminding that politicians have high salaries because in this country, stupidity comes with a price.
Attitudes, Flaws and Political Grimaces
Mihai Plămădeală, art critic – article published in the catalog of the exhibition
Notable in Valeriu Mladin’s creation is the relationship between subject and image, always inscribed in concise morphological limits. The development of the chosen theme implies in most cases series of artworks, each part of the whole being a variation. The artist thinks about his projects da capo al fine, keeping in his speech the right measure of the story from which he starts, seen as an iconographic source. The narrative, however, never affects the visual expression, paradoxically, the artworks retaining their independence from the underlying scenarios.

We are dealing with a personal way of judging the artistic act, whose fundamental characteristic is the game with time, respectively the choice of the representative moment of a kinetic succession of facts or events. In short, the vision, not infrequently musical, cinematographic, choreographic or screenwriting, passed through the filter of particular technological steps, sometimes experimental, is converted into a timeless visual sign. Not to be neglected is the appetite for the abolition of space, the background of the support being preferred to, let’s say, the original decor.

Valeriu Mladin’s political bestiary transcends simple fables, caricatures or social criticism. What matters is the way in which the artist captured and depicted attitudes, metaphors, grimaces and numerous other truths, into plausible images, seductive through their playful comic.

More than people in costumes with animal heads, something other than the prosaic story of politics in Romania and everywhere, possibly a typological index of the game of (and with) power. The political beasts created by Mladin can be liked in the declared context of their conception, but also as such, through the novelty of their representation or the proposed dichotomies, between sober and grotesque, monumental and derisory or appearance and reality.
The general atmosphere of the Political Bestiary project could be described synoptically in relation to George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, “Piggy Sneed’s Attempt to Save”, written by John Irving, “A Political Bestiary”, signed by Eugene J. McCarthy & James T. Kilpatrick, or, why not, with the albums “Animals” or, to a lesser extent, “The Wall” by Pink Floyd. In this list, “The Hieroglyphic History” of Dimitrie Cantemir would also find a legitimate place. In fact, the list goes on and on, but the most important thing is that Mladin has no one to pay tribute to. The idea behind his artwork session is just a pretext for research, innovation, expression. Between what he wants to condemn and the way he does it, we have the joy of discussing art.

Valeriu Mladin can be placed, at least through the side that includes Political Bestiary, somewhere on the border between Photorealism and Megarealism, if we accept the terminology. The balance between decided and undecided, the exacerbation of detail or the play of safe contours, with delimiting role, are just a few procedures that emphasize the reality of those represented, extracted from their original context and matrix transposed into another system, both coherent and personal.

