Sorin Campan
19 Feb - 13 Mar 2010
SORIN CAMPAN
Ora si loc
19 February – 13 March 2010
Galeria Plan B is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of the Romanian artist Sorin Campan (born 1940, lives and works in Cluj, Romania).
Among the long-term projects of Plan B, one strand of research and exhibition engages and seeks to revaluate a group of remarkable painters active in Romania between 1970–2000. We believe the works these artists produced can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the period when they were made, and that they have not lost any of their poignancy in the intervening years. These works visualize a double removal: they were made at a distance from the official artistic establishment of the '70s and '80s, and have not succumbed, like many of their contemporaries, to a mimetic rehearsal of international models after '89. In the majority of cases, the paintings never left the studio, and were undervalued, both culturally and economically, after 1989. We are proposing them as possible landmarks in a yet-unwritten history of the Romanian art scene, but also as models of artistic and social behavior.
Sorin Campan's works achieve their appearance of simplicity via a series of detours and through a nuanced reflection on the insturments of painting. Their enigmatic articulation demands a patient reading: simple images like nocturnal landscapes or still lives with fruit are pretexts to localize mystery, to subject it to a kind of order, which does not coincide with its translation or explanation. Beyond the always surprising dosage of transparency and secrecy, the quality of the painting – the austerity of means and the often exuberant chromatics – make Campan a remarkable artist. From a handful of artists, less visible but whose art continues to address us, Sorin Campan stands apart not by the size or number of works, but by his genuine, calm investigation of and with the medium of painting.
Ora si loc
19 February – 13 March 2010
Galeria Plan B is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of the Romanian artist Sorin Campan (born 1940, lives and works in Cluj, Romania).
Among the long-term projects of Plan B, one strand of research and exhibition engages and seeks to revaluate a group of remarkable painters active in Romania between 1970–2000. We believe the works these artists produced can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the period when they were made, and that they have not lost any of their poignancy in the intervening years. These works visualize a double removal: they were made at a distance from the official artistic establishment of the '70s and '80s, and have not succumbed, like many of their contemporaries, to a mimetic rehearsal of international models after '89. In the majority of cases, the paintings never left the studio, and were undervalued, both culturally and economically, after 1989. We are proposing them as possible landmarks in a yet-unwritten history of the Romanian art scene, but also as models of artistic and social behavior.
Sorin Campan's works achieve their appearance of simplicity via a series of detours and through a nuanced reflection on the insturments of painting. Their enigmatic articulation demands a patient reading: simple images like nocturnal landscapes or still lives with fruit are pretexts to localize mystery, to subject it to a kind of order, which does not coincide with its translation or explanation. Beyond the always surprising dosage of transparency and secrecy, the quality of the painting – the austerity of means and the often exuberant chromatics – make Campan a remarkable artist. From a handful of artists, less visible but whose art continues to address us, Sorin Campan stands apart not by the size or number of works, but by his genuine, calm investigation of and with the medium of painting.