EXHIBITIONS

In 1980 I was still a student. I knew Wanda Mihuleac had organized an exhibition called ?Writing? at the Institute for Architecture, where she had gathered together the best of fine arts. Mircea Horia Simionescu, the writer, had drawn a sentence as large as the whole exhibition, something about his house in Pucioasa. There were also Ion Grigorescu?s exhibitions, or those of the Group of Nine, among whose members were Marin Gherasim, Horia Bernea, Ciubotaru, T.D. Moraru. Andrei Plesu was their theoretician.

There was also an exhibition titled ?Hearth?, on display at the Village Museum, where they had works from all over the country. The common denominator was respect to the village: a sort of political attitude, actually. Demolitions had begun and the exhibition was thus meant as a stance of recuperation. Sorin Dumitrescu made a wax piece of bread, an icon lamp, all religious objects. Marin Gherasim accompanied the display with an extremely beautiful diptych. Sorin Dumitrescu also had a small painting called ?Candle for Daniel Turcea?. Daniel Turcea was one of the central figures of cultural life, he had become a sort of symbol.

After varnishing, they gathered in some house yard, where they had film projections and talked a lot. This is what happened after the varnishing of the ?Hearth? exhibition, too. Some of them were very learned, like, for instance, Ion Frunzetti. He used to say very pretentious things, which ran counter the very spirit of the exhibition.

There were also Marin Gherasim?s exhibitions, the ?Prolog? exhibitions, which started in 1984 and had a religious, if not overtly so, tendency. A censor from the Union used to come and assist especially the varnishing days. In 1982, shortly after the ?Transcendental Meditation? phenomenon, Ionica Grigorescu had his exhibition, and the censor came after the pre-exhibition. If there were objects of Buddhist inspiration, he took them out, and spoke in metaphors: ?It?s springtime, life is beautiful, no need to get yourself in the shade.? There was also Ion Dumitriu, whose exhibitions were a sort of recuperation of the village. (A. V., 52)

EXPLOITATION

The complete proletarian phrase was ?exploitation of man by man?. No talk whatsoever of the much fiercer exploitation by the State. (51)