Muzeul National de Arta Contemporanea

Mihuț Boșcu Kafchin

08 Sep 2016 - 08 Jan 2017

© Mihuț Boșcu Kafchin
Change in Declination
digital collage, 2015
MIHUȚ BOȘCU KAFCHIN
Memories from the depths of the Thetys Sea
8 September 2016 – 8 January 2017

Exhibition conceived and curated by Diana Marincu
Curatorial input: Anca Verona Mihuleț

Within the framework of the six-part curatorial project “The White Dot and The Black Cube” which started out in November 2015 and will conclude in January 2017, Mihuț Boșcu Kafchin’s exhibition initializes the final section, dedicated to solo shows. So far, the exhibitions were grouped according to the curatorial method that was employed, respectively, and revolved around the investigation of essential exhibition formulae: two group shows, two “dual” exhibitions, and two solo exhibitions. Each of these formulae was heightened through the dialogue between the two curators and the exchanges with the artists as well as with the institution of the museum. The premise of this series of interrelated exhibitions was an experimental curatorial stance, both intense and dynamic, in which the research hypothesis is counterposed to a “unity” of opposites, by means of a network of paradoxes and a co-existence of polarized ideas. This, in turn, is based on the theories of duality according to which the confluence of opposites constitutes the basis of knowledge and creation. The final episode of this series will start in November 2016 and will attempt a contextualization of video works produced by Irina Botea during the past few years.

The exhibition Memories from the depths of the Thetys Sea is constructed according to the principle of an exacerbated, eclectic visuality, characteristic of the universe created by Mihuț Boșcu Kafchin. The agglomeration of images and the different media – paintings, objects, installations and drawings – constitute a technological and organic workshop in which two distinct worlds collide in order to make room for a ruin made up of a few disparate cabinets: The Cabinet of Cold Heat, The Cabinet of Fortune, The Cabinet of Will, and The Atomic Cabinet. This post-apocalyptic vision draws on the aesthetic, not only on the scientific dimensions, and thus proposes a huge machinery of live tissue, which successively impregnates mechanical structures with human sentiment and beings with an appetite for self-destruction. The horror vacui scenography alternates with a baroque elegance, garnishing the space of the exhibition with a new identitary layer, in which fortune and will are gambled for at the same table. Visitors will be able to choose between the parcours of reading the works and the paths to follow in this prehistoric chaos bound to human existence, cut out from the period in which the artist was working in his studio in Cluj.

Mihut Boscu Kafchin (b. 1986) lives and works in Berlin. He graduated The Art and Design University in Cluj–Napoca, department of Ceramic-Glass-Metal, and has been working in a studio at the Paintbrush Factory in Cluj between 2009 and 2015. In 2014 he initiated there the art space Superliquidato together with Maria Balea and George Crîngașu. His most recent solo shows include: Chronicles of My Fantastic Banality, BWA SOKÓŁ Gallery in Nowy Sącz (2016); Reverse Engineering of the Self, Trafó – House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest (2015); Fraction of lightnings, plants, and synapses, Sabot, Cluj-Napoca (2015); Relative kinematics of a passing moment, Gaudel de Stampa Gallery, Paris (2015); If a screw falls in an abandoned robot workshop and there’s nobody around to hear, does it make a sound?, Mihai Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles (2014); Immortals have fun, Crystal Gallery, Stockholm (2013); II Clouds, Gaudel de Stampa Gallery, Paris (2013). He has exhibited his works in group shows such as: Timișoara Biennale Art Encounters – Appearance and Essence, Timișoara (2015); Vienna Biennale 2015, Mapping Bucharest: Art, Memory, and Revolution 1916–2016, MAK, Vienna (2015); A few grams of Red, Yellow, Blue, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2014); Report on the Construction of a Spaceship Module [Museum as Hub], New Museum, New York (2014); Cluj Connection 3D, Galerie Judin, Berlin (2015); Haunting Monumentality II, Club Electroputere, Craiova (2014); It’s Compulsory that We Have a Title, Salonul de Proiecte, Bucharest (2013); Expanded Painting, Prague Biennial 6, Prague (2013); La Triennale | Intense Proximity, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012).
 

Tags: Irina Botea, Mihuț Boșcu Kafchin