Press release in English: Before a Warning (Then as Now)_Press Release_EN

Press release in Romanian: Before a Warning (Atunci ca și acum)_Comunicat_RO

Ivan Gallery is pleased to invite you on Thursday, January 29, between 6-9 pm, to visit the group exhibition Before a Warning (Then as Now), which brings together the works of artists Sándor Bartha, Geta Brătescu, Florina Coulin, Ion Grigorescu, Gavril Pop, Iulia Toma.

The starting point of the exhibition is the video performance created by Ion Grigorescu in 1994, in Timișoara, for the Orient, Occident exhibition, curated by Ileana Pintilie. The work will be presented for the first time, as it was not part of the exhibition selection in 1994. In this video performance, Ion Grigorescu interviews his colleagues, raising the issue of conflict and violence. Then, as now, tensions were pushing the population into a tense state of waiting, marked by uncertainty. Thirty-two years after this video was made, we find ourselves in a similar situation: a war on the border, a divided society, and a succession of conflicts that have either already erupted or are about to do so in multiple parts of the globe. Ion Grigorescu’s film thus becomes the starting point for the exhibition Before a Warning (Then as Now), a space where, like in the video, discussions, reflections, and questions are encouraged. Against the backdrop of an increasingly suffocating and unpredictable global security crisis, the accelerated collapse of the old order makes the need to talk about the present instinctively open up.

The question of hierarchy is addressed by Sándor Bartha in the VIP animation series, which begins with the October 12, 1940 edition of the Székely Közélet newspaper. The festive edition, published after the second Vienna Dictate, features on its front pages the visit of Governor Miklós Horthy and his wife to Odorheiu Secuiesc. In contrast, on the last page, a few lines announce the opening of the workshop of Sándor Bartha (the artist’s grandfather), a master engraver, in the same city. Based on this document, the artist creates characters inspired by both statesmen and craftsmen, critically questioning the VIP institution and the criteria that define “very important people.”

For Geta Brătescu, the experience of war was a real one, recalled in the volume Atelier Vagabond published in 1985 (pp. 36-37, ed. Cartea Românească), where she recounts how the Despina Doamna girls’ high school building became a hospital for the war wounded and the senior students were required to supervise the wards. The series Pre-Medeic Forms, 1975-1977, started from the image of a military convoy drawn by Geta Brătescu in a composition structured from a mass of conflicting forces, still retaining faint traces of a contemplative archaeology: canvas, wood, straw, iron. From this series, the Medeic form subsequently developed, detached from the mass of opposing tensions.

War appears in Florina Coulin‘s work as a presence of the era, filtered through the pressure of information and tension that permeates everyday life. The Vietnam War is one of the landmarks of this context, marking the way reality is perceived and represented. In her works, Florina Coulin explores this tension through gestures and visual structures that reflect the uncertainty and fragility of the world in which she lives. Her practice becomes a space for articulating her own impressions and feelings, in which the limits and possibilities of thought are explored from the perspective of a “young person among young people.”

Gavril Pop is attentive to the uncertainty and anticipation that define the moment we are currently experiencing. Falling into the abyss is preceded by stepping off the edge. The imminence of the fall and the observation of an extreme situation create a feeling of confusion, against which the artist raises the issue of violence and the way language supports conflict. Tension becomes a state of affairs that, over time, leads to self-destruction. In his artistic practice, recycling and reusing materials takes on a meaning that transcends the factual, becoming a method of regeneration and reconfiguration of the object.

Iulia Toma‘s Perfect video is constructed around a repetitive, hypnotic gesture. Polishing the buttons of a military uniform becomes a channel of communication and remembrance of the daily ritual practiced by the father of the artist. The relationship of presence-absence with the paternal figure is rendered through rigor and attention to detail, intended to construct the image of a perfect outfit, associated with respectability. Thus, an apparently rigid gesture is transformed into an intimate moment of reconnection with the past. The memory of the father reappears in the work Buzunarul întors acasă (The Pocket Returned Home), where the memory of the ritual of waiting for him is reflected in the detail of the uniform.

The exhibition can be visited at the Ivan Gallery space in Cotroceni, Profesor Doctor Dimitrie Grecescu 13 Street, until March 8, 2026, Wednesday through Saturday between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm, and the rest of the time by appointment.