First piece for the winter edition of All Hollow Mag

1. 92 /
Alex
Mirutziu
is not your
personal
art tailor
A Romanian artist in his early 30s thinks
more of moments of silence than maybe
each of us usually think in their entire
life. He’s a performer and media critical
installationist, The only artist who curated
a collective exhibition of an art group made
only of himself and a hyperobject.
His name is Alex Mirutziu and thinks of
himself as transgressive and nuanced,
at least when working alongside his
partner, Răzvan Sădean. His works have been
flagrantly shown in Stockholm this year at
Lucie Fontaine Studio and Iaspis.
interview / George Robescu
photography / Barna NÉmethi

2. 94 /
where homosexuality is still frowned upon.
Because my work inspired fellow artists in creating works focused
W
on “otherness”,“alterity”,“marginal groups”,“the subaltern” in
contemporary Romanian society, it has been considered by many
as a groundbreaking step in abolishing the traditional mesh of
what is considered acceptable and worthy of attention in the
field of art. I think I was able to accomplish this also because, in
many ways, my work gets its strength from its raw, overwhelming
honesty.
What's it like to spend most of your time in a small
Eastern European city? Did you ever have to take a day job to
support yourself?
here did you grow up? When curator Arandjel Bojanovic was appointed to write about
I grew up in Sibiu, also called Hermanstadt, a former German the Manifest of Flaw, my first solo exhibition at Sabot, he noted
colony in the middle of Romania. For those who are not familiar that commodity culture came to Romania first via underground
with it, it’s the city that for centuries was at the forefront of broadcasting from Yugoslavia. And that was generally of
innovation – the first world experiment with rockets, the 2007 pornographic nature, an unfulfilled desire finding its way to a
European Capital of Culture. And recently, Sibiu hosted the first consumer previously depraved by it.
Romanian project focused on gay identity in Sibiu’s Brukenthal He believed to some extent what I did with some of my works
Museum with my works and Rob Philip’s portraits curated by through the Sabot channel was to fill a void in the recent amnesic
Liviana Dan. Romanian post-communist history. I was trying to manifest
In many ways I feel close to Sibiu because a significant part of something in my local context with the firm belief that it still has
my character was shaped by this environment and, strangely logic, as Arandjel noted.
enough, after living in the UK for two years to further my studies In this sense, curator Christopher Eamon considered my work
at the European Laboratory Theatre, in dance / movement closest to one of the lone heroes of the Romanian art scene, the
improvisation at Huddersfield University, I came back to the conceptual artist of the 1970s Ion Grigorescu. Indeed Grigorescu
same places where it all started. was in tune with international performance and body art, and
I respect that, but I think there is a clear, distinct cut between
You seem to have had a great international exposure our two artistic visions - from the moment I came out as gay, the
with one video called Tears are precious that was also exhibited in artwork became more and more urgent and direct. Suddenly,
2007 at the Brukenthal Museum. Tell us more. There was nothing lurking in the background, because there was
This video was filmed at the end of my stay in England and it’s no background left. I am honest with my work. Nowadays we
charged with all sorts of emotional pressures and distress. I think that behind every politician there must be a hidden agenda.
filmed myself crying, which for me worked on so many levels. I This comes from our communist heritage, a sort of resignation in
recall watching the film after its making and feeling torn apart. the face of something we cannot contain.
Crying was so emotional that it exceeded what I was prepared for The idea that when creating something there should always
in the first place. be an ulterior motive humiliates us over and over again. From
In 2008 I received the “Oscars” of video art, when Optica Video here on, one can notice that a way of changing the general
Art Festival awarded me with Best Independent Artist Award. perception about culture and politics, especially in Romania, is
Then, Transfera, an independent non-commercial TV channel to show things on TV from legal papers to incriminating proofs.
,
broadcasted it on TV alongside critically acclaimed artists such
, If we think about this a bit more, the idea of displaying things as
as Bill Viola and Pietro Melle. arguments is quite barbaric. Besides these issues, there is a deep
Since its release it was shown in cinemas at Madrid's Espacio 3, sense of distrust even when what’s established as common sense
selected by London’s Lumen Festival in 2009, Naples’s Casoria is thrown in our faces. We don't believe in anything any more but
Contemporary Art Museum. In 2010 Ars Homo Erotica, a our familiar vertigo. When Arandjel Bojanovic wrote about me,
pioneering exhibition featuring gay, lesbian and transgender I was working mainly with photography and video. Since then,
themes opened in Warsaw's National Museum and stirred my extensive engagement with performance and media critical
tremendous controversy presenting over 250 artworks from installations opened up an ontological terrain inside my Pending
antiquity to the 21st century. The exhibition explored the work Work and Scotopolitic Objects. In these works one of the critical
of Catherine Opie. It also presented a survey of queer motifs in aspects is that it resists closure by asking,“what is the reality of
East European artists: David Cerny, Anna Daucikova, Svajone never?”
an Paulius Stanikas, Karol Radziszewski and many others. The Regarding the jobs that I had, with these inconvenient ideas
curator of the show, Pawel Leszkowicz, chose Tears are precious underlying my work, one can expect a rough reaction from the
to be exhibited due to my courage to be outspoken in a country audience and potential buyers. Right now, jobs were and are

3. action is guilt / method to rourke
with Paolo Iannettone (Photo: Dario Garafalo) performance
at Studio Corte 17, Prato, 2011 Courtesy: the artist and Sabot,
Cluj-Napoca
self portrait with hood on note#3* to pending work #6
digital print on photographic paper mounted home dust, 29.7x21cm, 2012,
on komacel, 17.8x23.cm, 2007, Courtesy of the Courtesy of the artist and Sabot, Cluj-Napoca
artist and Sabot, Cluj-Napoca

4. 98 /
a good way to pay taxes, but to be honest, all the jobs I’ve had as pretentious as this may sound. Moreover, he’s brilliant at
brought some kind of input into my practice as an artist. uncluttering our sometimes too demanding efforts, on stage or in
galeries, something that I truly admire in people.
Were you ever tempted to move elsewhere? Why We are now looking forward to a new project in Vienna next year.
didn't you do it?
Because I'm quite a loner, I tend not to be affected by the You live in Sibiu, a small town with a quite strong
normativity of the social realm. For a while I truly considered Mitteleuropean feel about it. Does the Western myth/dream appeal
this an option, mainly due to a failure to foresee the welfare we to you in some way?
are promised all the time. I'm not one who panics easily even if A metaphor would explain it better. It is a shadow we are talking
I disagree with many political decisions our government takes. I about, another object, just like me. Shadows are breathless, they
look for what's honest and consistent and less arbitrary. When adapt with ease only to the immediacy of the now, lurking in
I came back home in 2009 I wrote a manifest, disgusted and the corners and creases of architecture, borrowing its publicness,
outraged by Romanian society’s close-mindedness and bias, and becoming something of the public domain. Its almost as if I
published it on my blog. It was a visceral, cynical text. I can traded my shadow much the same as the wonderful story of Peter
manage diverse environments as long as there is time to do so, Schlemihl by Aldebert von Chamisso, in which a young man
and I learned to look at the things arround me with more honesty. exchanges his shadow for a magical bag of money. I exchange
Together with Răzvan Sădean, I organised the first workshop mine for fullness of body in work. That's the trade, I would do
on performance art in Romania at Sabot supported by the this all the same, in any place I might find myself on the map.
Paintbrush Factory. We both believe that there are things that For the past years I've been exhibiting a lot from Zurich, at
need to change and when we can, we try to change them, as in the Barbara Seiler Gallery, to Rudiger Schottle gallery and Nicodim
case of performance art. Next year we will release an open call for in LA; from ZDB, Lisbon, to Power Plant,Toronto, and The Glass
a new workshop session for Bucharest. Factory, Boda, or Mücsarnok Kusthalle, Budapest. I guess the
Western myth is not so much a myth any more.
You claim Romania has only given you your place
of birth. Is that really all it's done for you? Is there something or When and how did you realise you absolutely had
someone quintessentially Romanian that you care about? to be an artist?
Hell yes! I believe that Romania’s hard line views alienated me a I was aware of this when things ceased to just jump around
while back. Perhaps it is a pathological anger over Romania that without an argument, when trivial details left the stage in favour
can only be born out of being the villain in a vast smelly ocean, of coherent meaning, that is when I gained the ability to pinpoint
where we can only smell our meta-odors? I wanted to breathe the unswerving curves of what I wanted to do.
another oxygen. My social criticism looks way back before the
revolution, where everything started. What are your major themes? Which medium would
I think the generation of my parents for example is on the you like to explore further?
verge of missing the whole point of why they made a revolution I make art tailored to deal with a problem. My interest is to
in the first place. They keep silent about the past in regards bring something into the world that doesn't demand from the
to its relationship to the next generations. I think we have a spectator his attention; it demands rather his absence, that he
deep problem of formulating our desires. We think there is an not add anything to it. I deal with positions on design, fabrication
outside world that needs adjusting to. I think we left the scar of and occupation of neverhood—the immaterial parameters of
communism undealt with for too long, and then we locked it in us, design that want to interact, to come into the texture of now —
and ran away. Maybe an alternative is to co-exist with honesty to design an approach that never was - to design never.
and forward thinking. In 2009 I had the idea of founding a collective instead of
I am outspoken when it comes to someone I truly care about - continuing an individual practice, a collective created by
my partner and sometimes co-conspirator, Răzvan Sădean, who associating myself with a hyperobject, with myself at 29 years
agrees with me on the above. We want more than a deplorable old, and since its making we worked with the idea of the present,
ideology, frigid tradition and damn right cultural primitivism. the reality of never, downcycling this fundamental object, of note to pending work #8
Lambda Print on aluminum, 2012
We want more than a dry discourse lacking room for tolerance what's what in The Artist and Himself at 29. Courtesy the artist
and respect for minorities or engaged and argumentative The fundamental workings of this collective question the way
individuals. mass makes reality, the secret life of mass. Whatever it is now, it
We've been been collaborating for different projects and cannot be complete if we don't take in consideration its neverness.
performances at Barbara Seiler Gallery in Zurich, Ze Dos Bois Just as the object of the world is always on the project board,
Art Center in Lisbon —a legendary art space where in the 90’s never makes this object visible. I want to make a better never, as
body artists like Orlan, or Philip Meste devoted their works to it is not homeless but deeply in us.
Atlantico Festival. Looking at Pending Work established as work about scale, far
As a Philosophy graduate and theatre maker, Răzvan is beyond any humanist perception — a hyperobject, too large for
very supportive and in our collaborations we work as one, the city, news, and the geography of where we are. It is simply

5. pending work #5
film negative
2011, Courtesy of the artist and
Galerie Rudiger Schottle, Munchen
some kill their love when they are young
installation view
too big, making it imposible to take it in all at once. Pending The most recent work of many Romanian artists is still anchored solo exhibition at Galerie Rudiger Schottle,
Munchen 2010
work is the artist at 29. Pending Work change the conversation. in a decisive object fit for galleries, whereas my practice moves
Dealing with a pending work implies many public appearences beyond such reach. Therefore I would say, at the moment I'm
considered as zero days. lacking the urge to join forces with others.
One zero day was the audience in Stockholm performing Pending Some time ago I was approached by Sabot gallerist Daria
Work #7 at IASPIS, observing a moment of silence for an event Dumitrescu and since then some of my projects were fleshed
that never happened. This questions the nature of proof, of out on their premises, from solo shows to performance based
evidence, and puts the observer in a paradoxical situation, by projects at ColectivA being supported by Miki Braniște who also
making him observe something that cannot be contemplated, produced a very important work of mine called When love melted
not adding any more silence to that which is already in the object, cavalries in our hearts, with which I did a small tour in Lisbon,
as the public is not outside the work, but part of it. There is no LA and Cluj.
outside, no audience for Pending Work #7, because time has no Daria Dumitrescu is the initiator of the now established
audience and no events to look at, not to mention giving credit Paintbrush Factory in Cluj. She practically came up with the
to any. whole idea and acted as a catalyst within the Cluj entourage.
Pending Work is laboured as being a work that is elsewhere, no In this scheme of things Sabot is a gallery that from start
pending work is here. It belongs to the history of thought rather delineated from the rest with its fervor and eagerness to make a
than being preserved as mere aesthetic residue. difference in Cluj and internationally. Quite young but with a full
international presence at artfairs and museums, Sabot gallery
Do you have any creative patterns or rituals? Do gave a voice to my work in a complex manner for my 2009 solo
you prefer to work on a daily basis or just when you feel like it? show, Manifest of Flow.
I am a task driven artist. These tasks help me create meaning.
I believe in a skilled repository of things from ideas that speak, There's a recurrent theme in your work: the body
to citations that make the mass of a discourse at a point in time. as an object subjected to all kind of arbitrary forces. Why is that?
Working towards that mass takes interobjectivity and synthesis. In the 2009 Manifest of Flow exhibition this body of work was suffering has the nature of infinity
performance with mink fur coat size 28, Gori de Palma high heeled shoe mask, silver metal chain top: vintage spastor
strongly bound up with a sense of sexual identity within an knitted mesh t-shirt (worn around waist): be you, leggings: Katia Lombardo high heeled platform shoes: my rings:
hair/make-up: Justin Lentz, duration variable, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Rudiger Schottle, Munchen, 2010
Is there any Romanian artist you'd like to work international socio-political context, thus the name of the
with? Why? How did you get to be involved with the people at The show. That was a scream of “here I am and proud to be here,
Paintbrush Factory in Cluj? the way I am”.

6. tears are precious
Lambda Print on aluminum 118x84cm, 2007 interview through Sculpture
Courtesy: the artist and Sabot, Cluj-Napoca performance with Razvan Sadean,Vault Gallery, Prato, 2012
self portrait with dead bird
when love melted cavalries in our hearts Lambda print on aluminum, 2012, 80x106.8cm, Courtesy of the artist
Lambda print on aluminum, 2010, Collection of the artist and Mihai Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles

7. 104 /
My body is an object; an instrument I cannot run away from, I could have protested in a vicious way but I don't think that
nor avoid. The artist and Himself at 29 is just that. The politics artistic expression should be the form as in the case of CNDB. I
of the body and of embodiment are so interconnected with the don't believe in revolutions masqueraded as art. There's no need
world that one cannot talk about the body once accepting that it for such a thing.
is not superior to the reservoir of Ebola in the wild. Why not take it to court? It's more of a decent start.
Is really history "nothing but muscles in action"? You're a gay man in a profoundly homophobic
And if so, what is the use of art? society. How does that influence your work?
Art is not only something to look at because it is in itself a face It is true that we are facing times of distress and intolerance, but
looking at us. It can also become an instrument, if you hold it I'm not surprised at all, because other countries like Poland and
right. The most recent situations in art and architecture depend even Spain face the same situation.
on the exploitation of history. The art and the artist are after all My projects are not affected by this state of things because I have
a line in grand manner painting. It all depends whether the curve very few shows in Romania. I would like to have more shows but
or joint of that line is evocative or not. the air is thick and hard to accommodate.
History has been muscled up and hijacked for generations until Some of my works are complex and difficult. Pending Work #4
it became a monster, especially in post-revolutionary Romania. relies on distance and reiterates an environmental thinking
Making art is a practice just like protesting. pointing out to Walter Benjamin's concept of nature, as a
The fact that Philosophy and Sociology draw influences from function of distance.
the art field makes me think of a more complex phenomenon Both in terms of engagement with its flow of time and within the
that has been developing for some time now, that art is more of imperative of being public undisclosed, as in the case of PW#4,
a partner in communication than something over there, beyond which I buried in the most beautiful mountains of Switzerland in
us. Think what has the“occupy” movement done for us over the the Swiss plateau, part of the Alps chain raising to 873m, covering
past years. Looking back now, it makes perfect sense that their 30% of the country. Not to mention that the work is hidden from
members hold their protests near or inside art premises mostly view and by means of a contract between me and Barbara Seiler
geographically centered. Gallery, the work comes with a 10,000€ reward for the one that
brings it to the gallery.
How would you describe the local art market? This type of approach messes up the normative artist - gallery
Adrian Ghenie stated that Romanian art is closer to a sociological - collector structure and reverses it or even burns it down
experiment than to actual contemporary art. Do you agree? completely. Now, some galleries are willing to take this approach
I think that Romanian contemporary art tries sometimes to and go for almost no work on display, as this is the case with
open doors where there are none to be opened. We are talking another gallery that represents my portfolio in Munich (Galerie
too much about post-communism, reiterating its blockages when Rüdiger Schöttle). Because of this gallery I was able to make
we are in need of a theory of reality. If we continue like that, we an exhibition with only contracts of future works. That meant
miss the point completely. Why? Because,“the only way out is in” questioning the very existence of a gallery and its infrastructure,
is not valid any more, because there is no outside of us that needs of market and validity in the art work.
to be fixed in order to move forward. To believe in the existence
of something exterior to us means believing in human supremacy Would you ever take part in a Gay Pride march as
over the world. those that take place every year in Bucharest?
When the circus leaves town, I will.
Is there any way to oppose political interference in
art? What would you have done differently to counterbalance what
happened to the Romanian Cultural Institute? Does the general
public care about these matters? Should the general public bother
with them? Why?
Is visibility only achievable through state patronage? I think we
need some other basis for making an impact outside Romania.
As the situation with ICR is quite a recent one and the reactions
against the hammered decision of practically dissolving it into George Robescu
a more nationalistic body, artistic protests were overrated and I
can only say one thing - that nobody listens. is an art dealer and auction-
The general public should protest and demand more from our eer for Artmark Gallery. On
politicians, but as I said before, this is hard to obtain when the the side, he curates contem-
general opinion is that we cannot interfere in what's been planned porary Romanian art for his
somewhere out of reach. own project, Plural/Mixed
Of course I've been offering my full support for this cause. Maybe (facebook.com/pluralmixed).