“Dan Popescu” Exhibition

Authors’ Comment

The “Dan Popescu” exhibition is an interventionist type. With the Lahovary Palace, an architectural monument, on the brink of starting a large-scale construction project (consolidation/restoration/refunctionalization), we took on the challenge of using it during this period through an artistic squatting project.
The fact that the H’art gallery was celebrating 21 years of existence served as a sufficient pretext to envision an exhibition that would populate all 23 rooms of the building plus the two annexes, where immersive installations by Anca Mureșan and Victoria Zidaru were created. The display solution used in the central body was in the “French salon” style, which was necessary because the inhabitation of the palace was in stark contrast to the functionalist space where the artworks were produced. The exhibition layout took full advantage of the vertical space, almost to the point of excess. At the same time, the draftings of the engineers and the cores they made, along with all the mishaps from probing the interior, were preserved. The works of the transition generation, a punk generation, matched these imperfections, and we juxtaposed them over the existing elements, making them part of the exhibition.
The project’s outcome was stronger than we expected. Using a seemingly outdated method, a step-by-step intervention, we like to call it “jazz curating”, without a very detailed plan but with some generative ideas in mind (thematic rooms: death, humor, struggle, XXX, fire, myths; a labyrinthine route returning to the central rooms of the floors), we created a space of incredible artistic opulence, truly overwhelming. Everything lives in an elaborate symbiosis where every crack or stain on the wall is integrated. It’s a response to white cube spaces, a proof of power for the over 500 works that fill this space, from the ground floor to the last small attic room.
Exihibited artists: George Anghelescu, Vioara Bara, Cătălin Bădărău, Ana Bănică, Ion Bârlădeanu, Marius Bercea, Matei Branea, Florin Ciulache, Codruța Cernea, Tudor Codre, Aurel Cogealac, Nicolae Comănescu, Radu Comșa, Suzana Dan, Ovidiu Feneș, Dumitru Gorzo, Lucian Hrisav, Mircea Ionescu, Ioana Joa, Bernard Joisten, Robert Köteles, Bianca Mann, Ioana Marșic, Gili Mocanu, Anca Mureșan, Vlad Nancă, Giuliano Nardin, Tara von Neudorf, Tets Ohnari, Alexandru Paul, Adrian Preda, Ramon Sadîc, Donald Simionoiu, Mircea Suciu, Roman Tolici, Virginia Toma, Ștefan Triffa, Ștefan Ungureanu, Ioana Ursa, Ecaterina Vrana, Marian Zidaru, Victoria Zidaru