Between April 20 and 30, 2023, the Art Museum in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, presented a unique artistic project - a site-specific intervention in the Bánffy Palace, signed by Andrei Budescu, and curated by Alexandra Sârbu.

The artist proposed a site-specific multimedia installation, “[UNSEEN: Subjective Itineraries”, put into a dynamic dialog with the fine art decorations of the honor wing of the Bánffy Palace and some iconic artworks exhibited in the “National Gallery”.

“The museum is a space full of meaning and significance, where you can experience an amazing journay of discovery. The act of active observation intertwines with the personal experiences and memories of each look generating a complex experience in which there are no rules, but only the possibility of being surprised. And thus, a visit to a museum, brings together perception, reflection and emotion, (re)awakening in us the amazement that seduces…”, we learn from curator Alexandra Sârbu.

The artist was supported in the implementation of the project by a technical team consisting of Sebastian Zanga and Dan Tămaş. The artistic project was realized with the logistical support of the Photo-Video-Digital Image Processing Department (FVPCI) within the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca (UAD).

CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP

On April 26, the site-specific intervention was the “host and the generating nucleus of a creative photography workshop that probed the dimensions of the ephemerality of the moving image and the effect pf the reversed mirroring of our passage through time and space, undermining and restructuring the naturalness of the historical flow”, we learn from sources within the museum.

Thanks to a series of “artist & curator talks” meetings, the visitors to the exhibition have had the opportunity to go behind the scenes of the creation process involved in producing the site-specific intervention, discovering a series of interesting details about the conceptual stake, the sources of inspiration, the received influences and the significance of the whole approach.

APPLIED LESSON

A group of undergraduate students from the first and second year of study, bachelor’s degree, Faculty of History and Philosophy within the “Babeş-Bolyai” University (UBB), majoring in “History of Art”, accompanied by the Phd. university lecturer Voica Puşcaşiu, had the opportunity, on April 27, to meet and dialogue with the initiator and curator of the artistic project, Alexandra Sârbu, the visit to the exhibition facilitating, in addition to an “inside” look at the entire process of imagining and building the site-specific multimedia art installation, an in-depth understanding of the motivations behind these creative practices (site-specific interventions), both exciting and challenging, increasingly frequently staged by the great western museums.

CONTEMPORARY DANCE WORKSHOP

The event was associated with the 2023 edition of the International Dance Day, it took place on April 29, 2023, and the participants in the activity were students of the Choreography and Dramatic Art High School "Octavian Stroia" from Cluj-Napoca.

Based on a guided improvisation, the contemporary dance workshop was adapted to the ambience of the exhibition-site-specific intervention, the training session being coordinated by contemporary dance expert and teacher, Loredana Crăciun, in collaboration with Alexandra Sârbu, museographer and curator of the exhibition.

The finishing of the exhibition took place on Friday, April 28, in the presence of the artist and the curator.

Andrei Budescu, a Romanian visual artist, is an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, where he teaches History of Photography and Multimedia at the Photo-Video and Processed Image Department. He has participated in a number of artist residencies and workshops in Romania, USA and India. The artist uses different cameras for his processes.

Andrei Budescu has been fascinated by cameras and photography since childhood. Over the last 10 years he has been experimenting with different photographic processes (Polaroid, Wet Plate Collodion) and different cameras (4x5, 5x7, 8x10 cameras). 

Photo credits © Andrei Budescu