Nicolae Comănescu exhibition in Studio 216, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien
The artist Nicolae Comănescu brings on to the spotlight, for the Berlin audience, while residing in Bethanien, a new arrangement of art works made out of textile materials, which are all a part of the „The Great General Scheme of all Things”, concept which made the artist get remarked in the year 2020 at the Invitro gallery in Cluj (Romania). One of the first grand works he created was made from pieces of clothing. That was, at the time, the central art piece at the gallery, around which a series of overlapping drawings were gravitating. These drawings made an abstract reference to significant social movements of post communist Romania.
The new arrangement is made from pieces of clothing which the artist acquired while living in Berlin, from fellow artists, neighbors or other acquaintances from the diaspora.
The accumulation of materials from the places he has lived in or has wondered through, is a very well known practice for the artist Nicolae Comănescu. He then integrates these materials under different forms: dust, ash, slag, powder, textile etc. Such series are: Moara lui Assan, Scrap Metal Kaboom Orchestra, Marea Schemă Generală a Tuturor Lucrurilor, Looking at the Big Picture from the Inside, etc.
Nicolae Comănescu, Oh! look honey!, dust, brick powder with acrylic medium on canvas, 2015
Nicolae Comănescu, /SAC Gallery, The Great General Scheme of all Things, 2023, photo by Oana Bălțatu
For the 15 works that will be exhibited in the residential workshop in Berlin, the artist integrates objects that belong to German culture. The supports on which the clothes are assembled are improvised from shelves bought by the artist from the famous German store, Bauhaus. Once these objects are reused, they lose their original meaning and provide support for a new cultural exchange between Romania and Germany:
The Grand General Scheme of all Things is always an overlap of layers of meanings, a hyperinflation of visual information by folding and packing personal histories in what appears at first glance to be a volume of color”, artist Nicolae Comănescu declared the artist for Artevezi magazine.
Nicolae Comănescu, A foggy morning walk, Berlin 2024, Bethanien Kunstlerhaus
Nicolae Comănescu (aka Comă) was born on November 14th 1968 in Pitești. In 1998 he graduated from the painting section of the Bucharest University of Arts, in the art class coordinated by Ion Sălișteanu. He is the founder of the Rostopasca group, one of the most rebellious artistic groups in Romania, which marked the years of transition from socialism to capitalism.
Humor, irony, social intelligence, versatility and protestant civic spirit are attributes that made the artist a survivor of life in the city. Also nicknamed the star of Berceni (the part of Bucharest where Comănescu has lived since 2008), Comănescu showed a major interest in the topic of recycling, the accumulation of matter and its reuse in different aspects, using dust, slag, ash from small barbecues, cement and adobe, as well as used materials, such as textiles and objects from his household inventory.
Article by Elena Est
