zeppelin magazine | no #95

Exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art – Bucharest, 14.05.2011 – 31.07.2011
Curator: Ruxandra Balaci

Dust poisoning, dreams and stereotypes cut out off the media, everyday experience among Berceni blocks of flats, some contagious humour, destabilized framing, light-headed stylistic collages, mixed cultural allusions and colour hallucinations are part of the aesthetic ammunition of artist Nicolae Comanescu whose paintings propose unusual trips among actual urban deeds and collective imaginary.

A cemetery extension located on an island between Venice and Murano seeks to redefine some of the original qualities of this place, while offering a greater sense of the lagoon context.

The San Michele Cemetery, Venice’s principal cemetery, is located on an island between Venice and Murano. This historic site has been in continuous development for over four hundred years but has recently evolved to a point where the romantic image of its outer face is in contrast to its interior municipal character.

Do it yourself (or DIY, the equivalent of “Fa-o tu insuti”, or FTI in short) stands for a popular culture, a kind of vernacular attitude on top of an industrial system. Although it does not get its own resources or technologies (similarly to the vernacular sytem), FTI-DIY is that way of making things following simple instructions (such as cartoons), on cheap tools and technologies (low-tech) – screwdrivers, hammer, drills etc. and a finite number of people to move and use the tools, components (e.g. the members of a family).