Feminine Archaeologies

Curator Ruxandra Demetrescu affirms that: ”As Griselda Pollock stated, since the feminine is composed as a paradigm of otherness, its volatility escapes any conceptual localization. Thus, the four artists explore/exploit their own bodies, portraits and self-portraits, in an attempt to assert the right to recognition and disclosure of femaleness. Working in different media, their works reflect, as Marilena Preda-Sânc argued in 2013, “feminist issues centred on the female body, understood as a spiritual, cultural and social universe of gender and as a space of individual, family and collective memory”, the body becoming an “image/place of freedom, a redefinition of female identity”. 

Each artist displays a retrospective dimension, which is more explicit in Aurora Király, who exhibits her series of early self-portraits Kaleidoscope (1998) and the remarkable project Feminine Archaeology, created in 2000 together with Magda Cârneci — which also inspired the title of the present exhibition. This dimension is implicit in Elena Scutaru, who last year revisited works created between 1995 and 1997 (Birdcage Character, Gaea) or, conversely, highlighted, in Marilena Preda-Sânc’s painting The Sleep (1986) — an unmistakable early marker/witness of a pictorial universe that reached its fulfilment in recent years, or by focusing on a distinct phase in their artistic biography, as in the case of Roxana Trestioreanu (manifested in photographic projects since the mid-2000s: Be delicious, Madame Recamier, Waiting for Godot, Mirror, Self-portrait).

On the other hand, there is a definite dimension of novelty in the exhibition: Marilena Preda Sânc is exhibiting for the first time paintings created over the last three years, such as Choose the Light, In The Depths, The Lake-Ear, Ielele - feminine mythical creatures in Romanian mythology, while Roxana Trestioreanu is presenting two works from her latest series, Botticelli. From this perspective, it is hardly coincidental that Aurora Király’s series Kaleidoscope is being exhibited now for the first time, producing a striking effect, like an archaeological discovery, once again justifying the title of the exhibition.

In the preface to the catalogue of the first major international feminist exhibition in Romania, organized in 2013 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest, Marilena Preda-Sânc stated: “The local/global political patriarchy, shaped over centuries by state laws, religion, and education, arrogant and still present, determines the need for a militant feminism, a local/global ecofeminism in an assumed existential essentialism, in order to be able to build a balanced human society, harmonious and less marked by the violence of devastating phallocentric battles for power. These words are a powerful statement, which is clearly reflected in the visual narrative of the exhibition. It begins with Roxana Trestioreanu’s work, fe-Male Trouble – Be Delicious, which is welcoming the visitors at the entrance, continues with the monumental painting Atlas (In my painting, Atlas is represented as a woman. I am Atlas. A woman has the power to hold the sky in her hands) by Marilena Preda-Sânc, is (re)configured with the courageous and provocative Self-portraits and Mirrors by Roxana Trestioreanu, is thematized with Héroïnes, in which Aurora Király pays homage to emblematic female figures of modern and contemporary visual culture (including Sonia Delaunay, Claude Cahun, Marina Abramovic, Pipilotti Rist, Martha Rossler, Marilena Preda-Sânc) and ends in the pavilion with the ineffable, discreetly feminist works of Elena Scutaru. I invite visitors to notice the eyes of The Throne (two metal dish sponges), a detail that is easy to overlook, and to linger in front of Gaea, depicted here in the form of another throne, portrayed as a fragile metal structure, covered in jute textile and hemp. The journey ends, unpredictably, in the gallery, with Marilena Preda-Sânc’s The Seer, featuring three eyes of Hannah Arendt—whom I consider, along with many others, one of the most brilliant minds of the last century—and who professed the desire/will to understand.

Marilena Preda-Sânc (b. 1955) is an interdisciplinary visual artist. Since 1980, her work has been presented internationally in museums, video festivals, conferences, symposiums, and national and international galleries. Her works integrate traditional art forms and new media, investigating and visualising the body/mind/soul/human behaviours in relation to nature and the social/ political/ representational space. Her art explores feminist issues of gender/ageing/women as leaders from an eco-feminist perspective. She is the author of specialist writings focused on feminism, new media, and art in the public space. 

Roxana Trestioreanu (b. 1957) is a visual artist, curator, university associate professor, and one of the founders of the Photography and Dynamic Image Department at the National University of Arts in Bucharest. She has participated in research projects initiated by the European League of Institutes of the Arts and the Goethe-Institut. Since 1985, she has been involved in organizing art exhibitions and international educational programs. She has took part in exhibitions organized at the Ernst Museum in Budapest, the Szent Istvan Kiraly Museum in Szekesfehervar, and the Xantus Janos Museum in Gyor, Hungary; the Saint Etienne Museum of Modern Art, the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, the National Museum of Art of Romania, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. His works can be seen in public and private collections.

Aurora Király (b. 1970) is a visual artist who works at the intersection of photography with drawing, textile art or installations, exploring how the mind records, relives, remembers. She is particularly interested in exploring feminist theories in relation with identity-making and the status of women in society. Her works relates to complex connections between events, public and private sphere of experience. Most recently, her works explore the memory of historically and politically charged spaces, with a constant preoccupation to reflect on art history, scrutinizing the creation of artists from different historical periods. Her works are in important art collections such as: the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; The National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest; European Parliament’s Contemporary Art Collection; as well as various private collections across Europe and North America.

Elena Scutaru (b. 1964), representative of the 1990s generation, works at the intersection of sculpture, installation, object, assemblage, and mixed media. She has participated in artist residencies in Aachen (1993), Akademie der Bildenden Künste and Kulturkontakt (Vienna, 1994, 1999) and Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris, 2015), opportunities to meet and exhibit alongside many other international artists. Interested in the aesthetics of Arte povera, she brings aspects of everyday life and personal histories into her work in installations presented at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest (Temporary Shelter, 2023), in contemporary art spaces (Sandwich offSpace), galleries of the Fine Artists Union of Romania, and cultural centers in Romania and abroad. Her personal artistic research projects have been developed through an intense participation in group and solo exhibitions. In 2019, she was awarded the Sculpture Prize of the Romanian Union of Visual Artists.