AnnArt has the pleasure to invite you at the Opening Event of an exhibition that is part of EBiennale which brings out a less-known side of Alex Galmeanu. It’s his experimental side, that uses the unrepeatable moment, and chance. 

The films and the toy-objects have a certain bittersweet irony to them. Galmeanu explores in a casual way our sensitive past, he challenges us to rethink and re-associate well known images with a new context.

The two toys, the drawing book and the Rubik’s-cube, are proof of the artist’s intention to bring humor to Ceausescu’s image. By making a color book with the Communist leader’s image, Galmeanu replaces an icon with an imaginary cartooned character. You are allowed to draw and color in the book, and so with each personal interpretation the portrait becomes chameleonic and unrecognizable. The same idea is pursued with the Rubik’s cube. As a tridimensional puzzle, this puzzle, this toy permits even a further deconstruction of the president’s image.  

In the film section, Galmeanu shows three works that summarize in different ways the issue of time. “Destroying/Creating memories” shows a very intense moment of letting go of the past. It’s a filmed haiku about getting old and it reveals a subtle but persistent emotion. On the other hand, “Landscape” and “The Minus Two Floor” get their charm from the saturated image and the clear details. Here, the artist shows us a world of timed coincidences and involuntary humor.

As a general view, the exhibition has a playful and nostalgic feeling to it. It’s nostalgic for something that can’t be named or that wasn’t even lived. It’s inherent nostalgia, a foreign feeling we accepted as our own.