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Răzvan Dragoș / Kinetic Metanarratives

No. 35 / Octomber 2020

Mihai Plămădeală, art critic – article published in Tribuna magazine  no.427 / June 16-30, 2020

 

Each artist has, or at least should have, an area of ​​his own and only his own where he manifests himself at his maximum. It is not so much about abilities as about creative spirit, in other words, about freeing as much as possible from external conditioning. At the stated level of interpretation, everything relates to artistic will and personal limits, be they conceptual or technical. These should not be seen in a pejorative sense, as shortcomings, but rather as ever-expanding borders, as obstacles meant to be overcome. Identity is, in this context, the most valuable asset of an act of creation. For the visual artist and not only, the fact of being recognized through his work or works is the supreme form of professional fulfillment, a confirmation (somewhat objective in his subjectivism) of the undertaken activity.

One of the most surprising contemporary Romanian graphic artists from the point of view outlined above, is, in my opinion, Răzvan Dragoș. A characterization by only a few attributes would look like this: unmistakable by theme, approach, manner, conception, artist who works clearly, orderly, clean, logical. His relative youth (under thirty at the time of writing) recommends him as a winning bet. Certainly, the reader got the idea that this introduction is an argument for the subject, that of contemporary graphics, not a prophecy or prognosis. Starting from the premise that nothing in art is pure chance, I link the artistic work of Răzvan Dragoș to the Romanian school of graphics itself.

 

Razvan Dragos

 

One observation I want to make is that we can talk about a fourth generation of true graphic designers in Romania in the last seven decades. The proposed history begins, without a doubt, with Vasile Kazar, Ion State and Octav Grigorescu; continues on a distinct route through Mircia Dumitrescu, Dan Erceanu, Ion Panaitescu, Ion Delamare Atanasiu, Ion Cuciurcă, Aurel Bulacu, Antal Vásárhelyi or Nicolae Alexi; another with Anca Boieriu, Dragoș Pătrașcu, Ovidiu Petca, Casia Csehi or Florin Stoiciu; and, finally, he meets the present through the generation masterfully represented by artists such as Zuzu Caratănase or Răzvan Dragoș. The latter, like most of those mentioned above, contribute institutionally to the perpetuation of good traditions in the field, being for about a decade, lecturer, respectively assistant at the art universities in București and Constanța.

However, the lists are purely indicative. Fortunately, our country’s famous artists transcend through their work the possible footnotes, literally and figuratively speaking. By the selective enumeration above I wanted to emphasize the tradition and continuity in the local graphics. The common denominator of those quoted is the thoroughness of the craft. The job well done, from drawing to image transfer, in the case of engraving and related sub-branches, are the cornerstone for all of them.

 

Razvan Dragos

 

Returning to Răzvan Dragoș, I am surprised by the coherence between his graphic signs and the objects they designate, all the more so as the artist prefers to represent things without a real correspondent, which do not exist, but which, in a sense, could exist, in the sense that they are structurally plausible. The reference theme of the graphic designer is kinetics, related to mechanisms (which are, par excellence, scientific applications, i.e. results of human intelligence) and artificial intelligence, able to simulate choices, free will and even consciousness. Interestingly, the artist treats movement through static means from all points of view. Representations, in themselves, are unshakable in their two-dimensionality. They evade the illusionist tricks that suggest dynamics. Time, as a dimension, is also “frozen” in hardened hypostases. All this leads to the observation that the mechanical systems, meant to generate movement, are represented by Răzvan Dragoș, in fact, at rest. A physical paradox, equivalent to a joke, says that when we use potential energy, we implicitly lose it. The machines in question fully retain the potential for movement with which they were endowed by “design”; otherwise, like the three-dimensional installations of Jean Tinguely or Neculai Păduraru, they are created for their plastic form, not for their function, at least not in an honorable form from an engineering point of view.

It is not known how many and which of Leonardo da Vinci’s mechanical sketches reached the actual design and execution phase. The history of art has recorded in his case a sum of theater props achievements unfortunately lost. What is certain is that Răzvan Dragoș became thoroughly acquainted with the master’s notebooks, which, to his praise, he did not introduce as such in the family of his personal visual signs. In fact, the Romanian artist did not take anything from anyone, given that he dedicated over three years of his life and activity to rigorous studies on kinetics and kinesthesia, constituted in the subject of a specialized book.

 

Razvan Dragos

 

And if I mentioned kinesthesia, it is time to discuss the anthropomorphic side that the graphic designer follows and which is a separate subchapter of his creation. In his case, biomechanics is related to bioethics rather than the kinetics itself. Ten years ago, Iulia Florea Lucan developed, in her turn, a visual project, up to a point similar to that of Răzvan Dragoș, entitled “La Machina Telurica”, in which she was interested in the interference between the mineral kingdom and the biologically, with the necessary fanciful transmutations and loans. Its main theme was to approach junctions as closed or open gates between distinct worlds. Unlike Iulia, when Dragoș uses anthropomorphs, he formulates questions regarding artificial intelligence and consciousness. The human form is seen as a temple and at the same time an ideal host for both one and the other component, which, in his vision, seem to determine each other. The artworks are not intended to be answers to questions about being and in no way possible science-fiction illustrations. Instead, they attract the viewer’s attention and even more, they could be designed to seduce.

In the series “Artes Mechanicae”, the artist stakes on organic compositions, in which each element is either summed up in a structure or sums up various other elements. The game is complete by closing some circles: the morphological criteria are interchangeable, so that the same element can determine and be determined, at the same time, depending on different points of view and compositional requirements.

The cycle “Kinetic Metanarratives” is the most heterogeneous chapter in his creation, bringing together elements and ideas from various periods of creation, all under the auspices of the movement, whether active (self-generated) or passive, the result of external actions. Here chromatics, otherwise called only occasionally, intervenes in the economy of compositions with a well-defined role, not only as alternation, variation or improvisation. With the help of distinct colors, different hypostases are marked, superimposed in the plan of the same artworks. It is about a possible reunion of some diptychs or triptychs. And in this case, the line prevails over the chromatics, while maintaining a major autonomy from the subject.

Everything is in fact a metanarrative in the creation of Răzvan Dragoș. The artist is a master of the relationship between content and form. Every time, no matter where it starts, it safely reaches a certain general in which otherwise extremely diverse spectators can found themselves. After all, one of the gifts of art is to bring people on the same wavelength.

 

Razvan Dragos & Mihai Plamadeala

 

 

 

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