The Studio: A Tireless, Ongoing Space - Camden Art Centre

Romanian artist Geta Brătescu’s vivid practice has comprised performance, textiles, collage, print-making, installation and film.

Living and working in Bucharest throughout Ceauşescu’s totalitarian regime, Brătescu embraced the studio as an autonomous space, free from economic or political influences.

Concerned with identity and dematerialisation, Brătescu conjured questions of ethics and femininity through her longstanding curiosity in mythical and literary figures, including Aesop, Faust, Beckett and Medea. These concepts have underlain much of her work through experiments in material rearrangements, charting the movement of her hands, the disappearance or concealment of her own image, and performing to the camera through her photographic series and films.

Her exhibition focused on this lifelong approach to the studio as a performative, contemplative and critical space to reflect on one’s own position in the world.

Geta Brătescu in five key works

Images The Artist Events Supporters

The Artist

Geta Brătescu (b. 1926, Ploiesti, Romania) lives and works in Bucharest. She has had recent solo exhibitions at: Hamburger Kunsthalle (2016); Tate Liverpool (2015); CAM, St. Louis (2015); Berkeley Art Museum (2014); MUSAC, León (2013); and Salonul de Proiecte, Bukarest (2012). Her work has been featured in major group exhibitions such as: Construction to Transmission: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960-1980, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2015); Straight to Camera: Performance for Film, Modern Art Oxford; 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2013); Il Palazzo Enciclopedico, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2013); and A Bigger Splash: Painting After Performance Art, Tate Modern, London (2012); IntenseProximity, La Triennale Paris, Paris (2012); and Istanbul Biennial (2011). In 2008, she was awarded the title Doctor Honoris Causa from the National University of Arts, Bucharest, for her contribution to the advancement of contemporary Romanian art.

Introductory Talk: Eleanor Clayton, Marian Ivan and Paul Johnson

6 April 2017

Eleanor Clayton, Curator at The Hepworth Wakefield leads an in conversation with exhibiting artist Paul Johnson and Marian Ivan, Director of Ivan Gallery, on behalf of Geta Brătescu.

Eleanor Clayton is Curator at The Hepworth Wakefield, where she contributes to the care, research, development and display of The Hepworth Wakefield’s collection and contemporary arts programme. She previously worked as Assistant Curator: Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Liverpool, and Assistant Curator: Public Programmes at Tate Britain and was involved in coordinating the 2008 Duveens Commission, Martin Creed’s Work No: 850 at Tate Britain.

Educators Social

3 May 2017

Join us for an evening to meet the Education team, take part in an informal tour and engage with resources relating to our new exhibitions Geta Brătescu: The Studio: A Tireless, Ongoing Space and Paul Johnson: Teardrop Centre.

Exhibition Tour: Geta Bratescu for Romanian Speaking Audiences

Sunday 21 May, 11.00 – 11.45am

Camden Arts Centre volunteers Alexandra Colceriu and Eduard Popescu give a Romanian language tour of Geta Brătescu’s exhibition The Studio: A Tireless, Ongoing Space for Romanian speaking audiences.

The tour will last for approximately 45 minutes and will be followed by a Q&A. Free, but booking is essential.

Another Romanian tour of the exhibition will take place on Sunday 4 June.

Materialul plin de viaţă al artistului român, Geta Brătescu (n. 1926) cuprinde performance, tapiserie, colaj pe hartie, grafică, film experimental şi instalaţie. Trăind şi muncind în Bucureşti, în timpul regimului totalitar al lui Ceauşescu, Brătescu a îmbrăţişat studioul ca spaţiu independent, eliberat de influenţele economice şi politice.

La 91 de ani, Brătescu continuă să lucreze zilnic, în studioul ei. De-a lungul carierei sale a observat spaţiul acesta ca un loc în care să redefinească sinele, ridicând întrebări despre identitatea individuală şi dematerializare, invocând dimensiuni ale eticii şi feminităţii printr-o curiozitate îndelungată asupra personajelor literare, incluzând figurile lui Aesop, Faust şi Medea. Colecţionând obiecte ordinare – paletele din lemn de la cafeaua ei cotidiană sau foiţele de ţigări – experimentele ei în rearanjarea materialelor iau o formă de jurnal. Coregrafiind într-un mod ritmic forme şi contururi, seria de colaje acţionează ca simboluri ale timpului şi spaţiului. Încurajând elemente de hazard şi angajându-se în tehnici precum desenul “automatic”, pictură cu cerneală sau desen cu ochii închişi, Brătescu se conectează la conştiinţa interioară pentru a aduce la suprafaţă gesturi şi interconexiuni.

Schiţând mişcarea mâinii sale, dispariţia sau mascarea propriei imagini şi performând în faţa camerei printr-o serie fotografică sau imagini care se mişcă, expoziţia este centrată în jurul abordării studioului de-a lungul vieţii sale, ca spaţiu de prestaţie, contemplativ şi critic al poziţiei sale în lumea exterioară.

Exhibition Tour

Sunday 18 June, 3.00 – 3.45pm

Jenni Lomax, Director of Camden Arts Centre, gives a tour on the final day of the exhibitions.