On Monday, September 7, 2009, at 16.00, the seventh exhibition from the Young Romanian Art series will be opened in the New Gallery of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Venice, Italy. The exhibition is entitled 'cynicism and fear', and it brings together works by Michael Baers, Benedek Levente, Dragos Burlacu, Michele Bressan, Alexandra Croitoru / Mircea Nicolae / Stefan Tiron.
TV turned Holocaust into an advertising campaign against Hitler and the German people. As it was a medium that gained mass popularity in the USA, it also engulfed very specific ideological attitudes. Thus, it promoted the monstrous figure of the German dictator and repressed the other figure, just as terrible, of Stalin.
What was behind the Iron Curtain could not be as important, because it was no longer part of the free world. On the other side cynicism and fear became two simultaneous options for the privileged, but also for those in suffering. The two attitudes developed to their utmost extent, covering all the surfaces, all the thoughts, shattering all hope and all natural gestures possible.
Apocalyptic imaginary became a daily mental landscape. Youngsters started to despise themselves for being alive, for being citizens of one country, for having been born in a certain place on this Earth. They wished to die, or they dreamt about it, disgusted with their own self or with the environment in which they were living.
The death of the leaders came as an episode from an absurd documentary film, that could only confirm the option for the same fear and the same cynicism in face of an uncertain future. Once connected to the free world of capital, collective fears gathered under another banner – that of the imminent disaster that will inevitably destroy us all.
Young Romanian Art is Mircea Nicolae's residency project at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Venice, during which the artist functions as an organizer and a curator. This series of one-week exhibitions aims at promoting young Romanian art during the Venice Art Biennial 2009.
