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Timișoara: „Paul Neagu. O retrospectivă” este prima expoziție de o asemenea cuprindere dedicată lui Paul Neagu (1938–2004), artist de origine română care a trăit și lucrat la Londra începând din 1971.
16 decembrie, 2022 - 15 aprilie, 2023
„Paul Neagu. O retrospectivă” este prima expoziție de o asemenea cuprindere dedicată lui Paul Neagu (1938–2004), artist de origine română care a trăit și lucrat la Londra începând din 1971.
Expoziția punctează toate etapele de lucru ale activității lui Paul Neagu, prezentând o selecție vastă de desene, obiecte, sculpturi, documentații ale unor performance-uri, precum și alte materiale adiacente (cărți de artist, caiete de schițe, fotografii). Opera lui Neagu este astăzi redescoperită de artiști, critici și curatori, de intelectuali cu interese și specializări diverse, devenind o sursă de inspirație grație caracterului ei multidisciplinar, care transcende contexte culturale și geografice și depășește dualități precum natural/cultural sau subiect/obiect în practicarea și receptarea actului artistic. Alături de multe alte caracteristici care o fac incitantă pentru prezent, arta lui Neagu este în mod particular relevantă datorită modului novator în care ea conjugă corpul și simțurile pentru a ajunge la o cunoaștere spiritualizată ce re-imaginează locul și rolul omului în lume și relația sa cu dimensiunea cosmică.
Arta lui Paul Neagu se exprimă prin obiect, sculptură, performance, desen, în angrenaje inventive de medii artistice și direcții tematice care se ramifică în timp. Artistul a căutat mereu să creeze un limbaj vizual cu o putere de comunicare universală. Paul Neagu este profund legat de Timișoara, unde a trăit mare parte din copilăria și tinerețea sa, până la plecarea la studii la București. Încă din perioada timpurie petrecută în România, care a fost marcată și de contactul fertil cu neo-avangarda timișoreană, Neagu a asimilat curente precum arta cinetică, neo-constructivismul sau cibernetica, definind coordonatele principale ale metodologiei sale artistice. În Manifestul artei palpabile, redactat în 1969, cu prilejul expoziției sale de la Edinburgh, Neagu formulează o critică a văzului ca vehicul primordial al percepției, pledând pentru inter-relaționarea organelor de simț și potențarea lor reciprocă. O serie de expoziții de succes în Marea Britanie îl poziționează ca o figură importantă în țara sa de adopție. Devenind din ce în ce mai interesat să exploreze mediul sculpturii, Neagu produce la jumătatea anilor 1970 invenția sa cea mai cunoscută – Hyphen-ul – o entitate deopotrivă conceptuală și materială, care, în pofida aparentei ei simplități, sintetizează o arie largă de simboluri și metafore asociate formelor geometrice de bază: triunghiul, dreptunghiul și cercul. În același timp, Hyphen-ul încorporează în geneza sa referințe la culturi materiale vernaculare ce aparțin unui spațiu geografic și cultural extins. În anii 1980 și 1990, Neagu a continuat să experimenteze cu formule sculpturale tot mai complexe – în cadrul ciclurilor sale de lucrări Nouă stațiuni catalitice, Unnamed sau New Hyphen – agregând elemente înrudite și disparate în demersul său de a construi o „hermeneutică vizuală”, în care vizualul și discursivul își răspund unul altuia și își prelungesc potențialul creator.
Retrospectiva, organizată în forma sa cea mai amplă la Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein în 2021 (și prezentată într-o versiune restrânsă la Neue Galerie Graz în 2022), a inclus reconstrucția unor lucrări importante din ciclul Hyphen, sub coordonarea artistului și arhitectului Johannes Porsch, care a conceput și un sistem de expunere ce are ca principal punct de referință vocabularul expozițional elaborat de Paul Neagu. Acest repertoriu versatil de elemente de design se adaptează în funcție de configurația fiecărui spațiu expozițional, ceea ce face ca orice nouă iterație a expoziției să dobândească o identitate distinctă. Prin includerea unor lucrări semnificative din colecții timișorene, retrospectiva Paul Neagu la Muzeul de Artă din Timișoara nu este așadar o simplă itinerare a unor expoziții trecute, ci se constituie ca o versiune originală a unui eveniment cultural major, cu relevanță locală, regională și internațională.
Pe perioada desfășurării expoziției, în februarie 2023, va fi organizat evenimentul de lansare a monografiei dedicate lui Paul Neagu, care reprezintă prima publicație de anvergură ce analizează toate etapele traiectoriei sale artistice. Bazată pe cercetări de arhivă și pe o investigare extinsă a surselor documentare disponibile, monografia acoperă multiple fațete ale practicii lui Neagu, aducând în atenție perspective contemporane asupra unui traseu artistic și cultural singular, adâncind totodată contextualizarea sa istorică. Monografia este editată de Magda Radu și Georg Schöllhammer, alături de Diana Ursan, asistent editor, fiind comisionată de The Paul Neagu Estate (UK) și publicată de JRP|Editions; eseurile din cuprinsul ei sunt semnate de Ivana Bago, David Crowley, Tom Holert, André Lepecki, Friedemann Malsch, Anca Oroveanu, Ileana Pintilie, Magda Radu, Yehuda Emmanuel Safran, Kristine Stiles și Diana Ursan.
Paul Neagu s-a născut în 1938 în București, România. În 1946 s-a mutat împreună cu familia sa la Timișoara. Între 1959 și 1965 a studiat pictura la Institutul de Arte Plastice „Nicolae Grigorescu” din București. Înainte de a deveni artist a lucrat ca electrician și desenator tehnic. În 1971 a emigrat în Anglia, iar în 1976 a obținut cetățenia britanică. În Londra a fost profesor la Hornsey College of Art, Slade School of Fine Art, și la Chelsea College of Art and Design. În 1976 a fost numit profesor asociat la Royal College of Art, avându-i ca studenți, printre alții, pe Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Tony Cragg și Perry Robinson. Lucrările lui se află în colecțiile unor instituții precum: British Museum, Londra; Victoria and Albert Museum, Londra; Tate, Londra; National Galleries of Scotland; Fonds Départemental d’Art Contemporain, Seine-Saint-Denis; Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne; Kontakt Collection, Viena; Art Collection Telekom, Bonn; Muzeul Național de Artă al României, București; Muzeul Național de Artă Contemporană, București; Philadelphia Art Museum; Muzeul Prefecturii Tochigi, Japonia; Muzeul de Artă Contemporană Tokio, Japonia.
Expoziții personale (selecție)
BRUSEUM / Neue Galerie Graz, 2022; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 2021; Parts Project, Haga, 2019; Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 2015; Muzeul Național de Artă, Timișoara, 2014–15; Muzeul de Artă, Cluj-Napoca, 2014–15; Ivan Gallery, București, 2015, 2014, 2012; ICR Londra, 2009; Gallery 49, New York, 2004; Muzeul Brukenthal, Sibiu, 1994; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1988; Serpentine Gallery, Londra, 1987; K Gallery, Tokyo, 1986; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1982; Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, 1979; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1975–1976; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1976; Serpentine Gallery, Londra, 1973; Galerie Rivolta, Lausanne, 1972; Sigi Krauss Gallery, Londra, 1971; Compass Gallery, Glasgow, 1971; Bauzentrum, Hamburg, 1968-69; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1969; Amphora Gallery, Bucharest, 1969.
BRUSEUM / Neue Galerie Graz, 2022; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 2021; Parts Project, Haga, 2019; Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 2015; Muzeul Național de Artă, Timișoara, 2014–15; Muzeul de Artă, Cluj-Napoca, 2014–15; Ivan Gallery, București, 2015, 2014, 2012; ICR Londra, 2009; Gallery 49, New York, 2004; Muzeul Brukenthal, Sibiu, 1994; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1988; Serpentine Gallery, Londra, 1987; K Gallery, Tokyo, 1986; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1982; Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, 1979; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1975–1976; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1976; Serpentine Gallery, Londra, 1973; Galerie Rivolta, Lausanne, 1972; Sigi Krauss Gallery, Londra, 1971; Compass Gallery, Glasgow, 1971; Bauzentrum, Hamburg, 1968-69; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1969; Amphora Gallery, Bucharest, 1969.
Curatori: Friedemann Malsch, Magda Radu, Georg Schöllhammer
Co-curator MNArT: Andreea Foanene
Display expozițional realizat de Attila Kim Architects după un concept de Johannes Porsch
Identitate vizuală: Larisa Sitar
Co-curator MNArT: Andreea Foanene
Display expozițional realizat de Attila Kim Architects după un concept de Johannes Porsch
Identitate vizuală: Larisa Sitar
Expoziție organizată în colaborare cu: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, BRUSEUM / Neue Galerie Graz și The Paul Neagu Estate (UK)
Co-organizator: Asociația Salonul de proiecte
Proiectul face parte din „Programul Cultural Timișoara 2023—Capitală Europeană a Culturii” și este finanţat de Consiliul Județean Timiș.
Co-organizator: Asociația Salonul de proiecte
Proiectul face parte din „Programul Cultural Timișoara 2023—Capitală Europeană a Culturii” și este finanţat de Consiliul Județean Timiș.
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”Paul Neagu. A Retrospective” is the first exhibition on such a comprehensive scale to be dedicated to Paul Neagu (1938-2004), the Romanian-born artist who lived and worked in the UK from 1971 onward. The exhibition highlights all the stages in Paul Neagu’s working career, presenting a vast selection of drawings, objects, sculptures, documentation of performances, and other adjacent materials, such as artist books, sketchbooks, and photographs. Neagu’s work is being rediscovered by artists, critics, curators, and thinkers in various fields, and has become a source of inspiration due to its engagement with a multiplicity of disciplinary approaches, which transcends cultural and geographic contexts and goes beyond such dichotomies as nature/culture and subject/object in the practice and reception of the artistic act. Alongside many other characteristics that make it inciting for the present day, Neagu’s art is particularly relevant thanks to the innovative way in which it conjoins the body and the senses in order to reach a spiritualised knowledge that re-imagines the place and the role of the human in the world and its relationship with the cosmic dimension.
Paul Neagu’s art expresses itself through objects, sculpture, performance, drawing, in inventive combinations of artistic mediums and thematic directions that proliferate over time. The artist always sought to create a visual language that possessed the power to communicate universally. Paul Neagu has been deeply attached to Timișoara, where he lived for a large part of his childhood and youth, until he left to study in Bucharest. Even during his early period in Romania, which was also marked by fruitful contacts with the Timișoara neo-avantgarde, Neagu assimilated movements such as kinetic art, neo-constructivism, and cybernetics, defining the major co-ordinates of his artistic methodology. In his Manifesto of Palpable Art, which he wrote for his 1969 exhibition in Edinburgh. Neagu formulates a critique of vision as the primary vehicle of perception, arguing instead for the inter-relatedness of the sense organs and their reciprocal enhancement. A series of well received exhibitions in the United Kingdom positioned him as a major figure in his adoptive homeland. Becoming in time progressively interested in exploring the medium of sculpture, in the mid-1970s Neagu produced his best-known invention: the Hyphen, a simultaneously conceptual and material entity, which, despite its apparent simplicity, synthesises a wide range of symbols and metaphors associated with the basic geometric forms: the triangle, the rectangle, the circle. At the same time, the Hyphen incorporates in its genesis references to vernacular material cultures belonging to a vast geographic and cultural territory. In the 1980s and 1990s, Neagu continued to experiment with increasingly complex sculptural formats—as part of his cycles of works Nine Catalytic Stations, Unnamed and New Hyphen—aggregating related and disparate elements in his endeavour to construct a ‘visual hermeneutics’, in which image and discourse respond to each other and extend their creative potential.
The retrospective, held in its most extensive form at the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein in 2021 (and presented in a scaled-down version at the Neue Galerie Graz in 2022), included the reconstruction of major works from the Hyphen cycle, under the supervision of artist and architect Johannes Porsch, who also conceived a display system whose main reference point is the exhibition vocabulary elaborated by Paul Neagu himself. This versatile repertoire of design elements can be adapted to the characteristics of each particular exhibition space, which makes each new iteration of the exhibition take on its own distinct identity. By including significant works from collections in Timișoara, the Paul Neagu retrospective at the Museum of Art in Timișoara is therefore more than a simple iteration of past exhibitions and rather constitutes itself as an original version of a major cultural event, one that has local, regional, and international relevance.
During the course of the exhibition, in February 2023, an event will be held to launch a monograph dedicated to Paul Neagu, which represents the first large-scale publication to examine all the phases of his artistic itinerary. Based on archival research and an extensive investigation of the available documentary sources, the monograph covers multiple facets of Neagu’s practice, drawing attention to contemporary perspectives on this singular artistic and cultural trajectory, while at the same time deepening its historical contextualization. The monograph is edited by Magda Radu and Georg Schöllhammer, along with assistant editor Diana Ursan. It was commissioned by The Paul Neagu Estate (UK) and is published by JRP|Editions, with essays by Ivana Bago, David Crowley, Tom Holert, André Lepecki, Friedemann Malsch, Anca Oroveanu, Ileana Pintilie, Magda Radu, Yehuda Emmanuel Safran, Kristine Stiles, and Diana Ursan.
”Paul Neagu. A Retrospective” is the first exhibition on such a comprehensive scale to be dedicated to Paul Neagu (1938-2004), the Romanian-born artist who lived and worked in the UK from 1971 onward. The exhibition highlights all the stages in Paul Neagu’s working career, presenting a vast selection of drawings, objects, sculptures, documentation of performances, and other adjacent materials, such as artist books, sketchbooks, and photographs. Neagu’s work is being rediscovered by artists, critics, curators, and thinkers in various fields, and has become a source of inspiration due to its engagement with a multiplicity of disciplinary approaches, which transcends cultural and geographic contexts and goes beyond such dichotomies as nature/culture and subject/object in the practice and reception of the artistic act. Alongside many other characteristics that make it inciting for the present day, Neagu’s art is particularly relevant thanks to the innovative way in which it conjoins the body and the senses in order to reach a spiritualised knowledge that re-imagines the place and the role of the human in the world and its relationship with the cosmic dimension.
Paul Neagu’s art expresses itself through objects, sculpture, performance, drawing, in inventive combinations of artistic mediums and thematic directions that proliferate over time. The artist always sought to create a visual language that possessed the power to communicate universally. Paul Neagu has been deeply attached to Timișoara, where he lived for a large part of his childhood and youth, until he left to study in Bucharest. Even during his early period in Romania, which was also marked by fruitful contacts with the Timișoara neo-avantgarde, Neagu assimilated movements such as kinetic art, neo-constructivism, and cybernetics, defining the major co-ordinates of his artistic methodology. In his Manifesto of Palpable Art, which he wrote for his 1969 exhibition in Edinburgh. Neagu formulates a critique of vision as the primary vehicle of perception, arguing instead for the inter-relatedness of the sense organs and their reciprocal enhancement. A series of well received exhibitions in the United Kingdom positioned him as a major figure in his adoptive homeland. Becoming in time progressively interested in exploring the medium of sculpture, in the mid-1970s Neagu produced his best-known invention: the Hyphen, a simultaneously conceptual and material entity, which, despite its apparent simplicity, synthesises a wide range of symbols and metaphors associated with the basic geometric forms: the triangle, the rectangle, the circle. At the same time, the Hyphen incorporates in its genesis references to vernacular material cultures belonging to a vast geographic and cultural territory. In the 1980s and 1990s, Neagu continued to experiment with increasingly complex sculptural formats—as part of his cycles of works Nine Catalytic Stations, Unnamed and New Hyphen—aggregating related and disparate elements in his endeavour to construct a ‘visual hermeneutics’, in which image and discourse respond to each other and extend their creative potential.
The retrospective, held in its most extensive form at the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein in 2021 (and presented in a scaled-down version at the Neue Galerie Graz in 2022), included the reconstruction of major works from the Hyphen cycle, under the supervision of artist and architect Johannes Porsch, who also conceived a display system whose main reference point is the exhibition vocabulary elaborated by Paul Neagu himself. This versatile repertoire of design elements can be adapted to the characteristics of each particular exhibition space, which makes each new iteration of the exhibition take on its own distinct identity. By including significant works from collections in Timișoara, the Paul Neagu retrospective at the Museum of Art in Timișoara is therefore more than a simple iteration of past exhibitions and rather constitutes itself as an original version of a major cultural event, one that has local, regional, and international relevance.
During the course of the exhibition, in February 2023, an event will be held to launch a monograph dedicated to Paul Neagu, which represents the first large-scale publication to examine all the phases of his artistic itinerary. Based on archival research and an extensive investigation of the available documentary sources, the monograph covers multiple facets of Neagu’s practice, drawing attention to contemporary perspectives on this singular artistic and cultural trajectory, while at the same time deepening its historical contextualization. The monograph is edited by Magda Radu and Georg Schöllhammer, along with assistant editor Diana Ursan. It was commissioned by The Paul Neagu Estate (UK) and is published by JRP|Editions, with essays by Ivana Bago, David Crowley, Tom Holert, André Lepecki, Friedemann Malsch, Anca Oroveanu, Ileana Pintilie, Magda Radu, Yehuda Emmanuel Safran, Kristine Stiles, and Diana Ursan.
Paul Neagu was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1938. In 1946 his family moved to Timișoara. Between 1959 and 1956 he studied painting at the “Nicolae Grigorescu” Institute of Fine Arts, Bucharest. Before becoming an artist, he worked as an electrician and technical draughtsman. In 1971 he emigrated to England and in 1976 became a British citizen. In London he taught at the Hornsey College of Art, the Slade School of Fine Art, and the Chelsea College of Art and Design. In 1976 he was appointed associate professor at the Royal College of Art, where his students included Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Tony Cragg, and Perry Robinson. His works can be found in the collections of the British Museum, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Tate, London; National Galleries of Scotland; Fonds Départemental d’Art Contemporain, Seine-Saint-Denis; the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne; Kontakt Collection, Vienna; Art Collection Telekom, Bonn; The National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest; The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of the Tochigi Prefecture, Japan; and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, among others.
Solo exhibitions (selection)
BRUSEUM / Neue Galerie Graz, 2022; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 2021; Parts Project, The Hague, 2019; Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 2015; National Museum of Art, Timișoara, 2014–15; Museum of Art, Cluj, 2014–15; Ivan Gallery, Bucharest, 2015, 2014, 2012; Romanian Cultural Institute, London, 2009; Gallery 49, New York, 2004; Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, 1994; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1988; Serpentine Gallery, London, 1987; K Gallery, Tokyo, 1986; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1982; Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, 1979; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1975–1976; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1976; Serpentine Gallery, London, 1973; Galerie Rivolta, Lausanne, 1972; Sigi Krauss Gallery, London, 1971; Compass Gallery, Glasgow, 1971; Bauzentrum, Hamburg, 1968-69; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1969; Amphora Gallery, Bucharest, 1969.
BRUSEUM / Neue Galerie Graz, 2022; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 2021; Parts Project, The Hague, 2019; Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 2015; National Museum of Art, Timișoara, 2014–15; Museum of Art, Cluj, 2014–15; Ivan Gallery, Bucharest, 2015, 2014, 2012; Romanian Cultural Institute, London, 2009; Gallery 49, New York, 2004; Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, 1994; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1988; Serpentine Gallery, London, 1987; K Gallery, Tokyo, 1986; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1982; Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, 1979; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1975–1976; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1976; Serpentine Gallery, London, 1973; Galerie Rivolta, Lausanne, 1972; Sigi Krauss Gallery, London, 1971; Compass Gallery, Glasgow, 1971; Bauzentrum, Hamburg, 1968-69; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, 1969; Amphora Gallery, Bucharest, 1969.
Co-organizer: Salonul de proiecte
This project is part of the ‘Timișoara 2023 Cultural Programme – European Capital of Culture’ and is financed by the Council of Timiș County.
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