1965 – 1966. UN EXERCIȚIU

Abstract:

Let's take a Romanian Labor Party general secretary recently elected, an official of the Italian Foreign Ministry, a cultural attaché, an embassy secretary, an exhibition curator, an art critic, a musicologist recently released from political detention, a young and gifted writer still unpublished, a literary critic living in exile, a few painters and an architect and, why not, a kind of collective character detached from an exhibition guest book. Romania – Italia / 1965-1966. Ceaușescu, Zagari, Niță, Mureșan, Comarnescu, Bogdan, Brauner, Petrescu, Lovinescu, Fontana, Burri, Morandi, Campigli, Scarpa and Gherasim - these are the “authors” of our sketch. The exercise we are proposing is to try to reconstruct the atmosphere of the 1965 - 1966 years, starting from these different points of view noted in official archives files, in personal diary notes, or in the national security service documents. Starting from such different angles we believe that we will have an image about the aspirations and potential of those years, in terms of the cultural dynamics and trends. The 1965 and 1966 years are turning points for Romania. An intense period for Paul Gherasim as well, a gifted painter and a future cultural entrepreneur. Starting from 1968, he will organize a series of art exhibitions in various cities of Romania. These exhibitions are the subject of my doctoral research. Following comparative perspectives and seeing himself as a poet rather than a curator, Gherasim will search correspondences between distant periods in our art and culture, in order to reveal a voice, a collective timbre. I hope the exercise prposed here will help us to understand some of Paul Gherasim's future poetic and conceptual options.

Keywords:

curator, dictatorship, communism, socialist, realism, painting, biennial, culture, exile