The New Roman(ian) Order

Courtesy Plan B

The site of Plan B gallery's new space in Cluj, Romania

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According to legend, the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi refused Auguste Rodin’s invitation to come to work in his studio because "nothing grows well in the shadow of a big tree." The prospect of being overwhelmed by an already successful and established artist is one thing, but the reality of living under a dictatorship and through its aftermath is quite another. Strangely, though, these problematic circumstances may have helped contribute to the generation of thirtysomething Romanian artists recently gaining recognition on the international art scene. Growing up during communism and witnessing its disintegration, followed by the rapid onslaught and effects of consumer culture on their society, has given them a unique perspective.

It could be, as Romanian critic Mihnea Mircan proposes, that the artists have developed a kind of "allergy to Utopia" that has imbued them with a watchful detachment, a desire to deconstruct and uncover things for themselves and to develop and sustain a strongly independent voice in their work. It would be wrong, though, to suggest that a common theme threads through the work of all up-and-coming Romanian artists. What they do share — and this extends across their various practices — is a highly individualized sense of perception often mingled with a dark, sometimes ironic, approach to their chosen subject matter.

A number of factors have contributed to the ascendancy of Romanian artists, not least the success of Plan B, an artist-run gallery in Cluj, a city that is itself something of a rising star. The capital of the northwestern province of Transylvania, it is a quickly growing academic, commercial, cultural, and technological center. Plan B began quite modestly in 2005 as a collaboration between the multimedia artist Mihai Pop and the painter Adrian Ghenie, who were entering their 30s and were frustrated by the local art scene — what there was of one. With a tiny loan from a family friend, they established a commercial gallery that could function as an exhibition space, a vehicle for promoting artists internationally, and a laboratory where artists could initiate research and develop projects. The name of the gallery was a wry acknowledgment of the fact that, up to that point, all of their plan As had come to nothing.

The venture exceeded expectations. Plan B’s artists are now included in the stables of some of the world’s leading galleries and are regularly invited to participate in major international art events. (In fact, so successful has the gallery been in launching native artists that Ghenie has gone back to concentrating on his painting, although he is still linked to Plan B as an artist.) These international connections — and the non-Romanian collectors they attract — have been essential to the development of the country’s contemporary art arena, as relatively few Romanians are willing to personally support emerging art.

Most of Plan B’s artists are of the same generation as Pop and Ghenie, and, indeed, many of them — such as Mircea Cantor, Victor Man, Ciprian Muresan, Serban Savu, and Cantemir Hausi — trained alongside them at the University of Art and Design in Cluj. They could all be described as being conceptually strong, as the work of each is concerned with exploring and deconstructing specific ideas and phenomena. Cantor and Muresan work across disciplines; Man, in painting and installation; and Ghenie, Savu, and Hausi (along with a number of promising young talents from Cluj) maintain a steady commitment to painting. Historically, Romanian artists have a reputation for avant-garde thinking, most notably derived from their involvement with the Dada movement. (Their contribution to Dada and to Dada’s continued influence on contemporary Romanian art was recently acknowledged in a 2006 book by Tom Sandqvist, Dada East: The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire.)

Plan B has earned a reputation for the collaborative way with which it engages with artists. Last year, in keeping with his original intentions for Plan B to facilitate projects, Pop invited Cantor to use the gallery as a workshop in preparation for his solo show, "The Need for Uncertainty," which toured three U.K. museums. Pop also served as commissioner of the Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007, and in October, Plan B will participate in the Frieze Art Fair. The gallery’s good reputation — coupled with the fact that its artists’ works have become extremely desirable to international collectors — enabled Pop to open a second space in Berlin last year with cofounder Mihaela Lutea. And next month, their Cluj gallery will move into a larger space, a former paintbrush factory that has recently been renovated to house artists’ studios and gallery spaces. Their neighbors will include Laika and Sabot, the newest editions to the gallery scene.