Șerban Savu: What Work Is?, Romanian Pavilion – La Biennale di Venezia, 20.04–24.11.2024, Curator Ciprian Mureșan

Abstract

In 2024 our country’s pavilion was represented at the Venice Biennale through the exhibition What work is?, where visitors could enjoy the mastery of the internationally renowned Roma­nian artist Șerban Savu. The Venice Bien­nale is one of the most beautiful celebra­tions of contemporary art. Through this event, the artworld gains consensus because once every two years artists from different corners of the world have the opportunity to exhibit their works in the most important global festival. Therefore, both the exchange of ideas and the connection to new innovations are favored. Venice in general is a place blessed with a variety of beauties that belong both to the uniqueness of its anthropic geographical features, given its pictur­esque canals, and the urban landscape that is made up of pretentious architectural monuments, but during the Biennale, when the galleries welcome you at every corner, the city becomes a true hedonistic sanctuary. In addition to the exhibitions that can be found in the most spontaneous places of the city, two geographically peripheral areas are dedicated to the Biennale and thus become culturally-central, namely Giardini and Arsenale. Giardini means garden, as the name suggests in Italian, but it is more of a park dedicated to the arts where one can interact with the national pavilions and exhibitions of different countries. Șerban Savu, born in 1978, is one of the best-known contemporary Romanian artists active on the foreign art scene, able to convey particularities of the post-communist Romanian landscape with the help of old masters’ techniques. The artist works primarily with painting and mosaic, favoring a classical, figurative approach to the autochthonous themes he explores. He also belongs to the famous group of artists, catalyzed around the gallerist Mihai Pop, referred to in historiography as the “Cluj School” or the “Cluj Phenomenon”. The group includes other world-class artists such as Adrian Ghenie (who also represented Romania at the Venice Biennale in 2015), Victor Man or Mircea Cantor. Curator Ciprian Mureșan (b. 1977) is another significant member of the group, to whom we owe the core idea behind the exhibition. He is an artist recognized both in Romania and abroad for his neo-conceptual vision through which he perceives social vulnerabilities and criticizes or ironizes them through various artistic means.