Ivan Gallery has the pleasure to invite you Tuesday 30 June, 7 PM, to the opening of Paul Neagu’s „Blind Bite” solo show, with the first Romanian screening of the 1975 film.

„Blind Bite” is one of the central topics in Paul Neagu’s theoretical thinking and artistic practice. Referring to the subconscious area of primordial impulses and instincts that sustain, nurture and perpetuate human being and existence‚ ”Blind Bite is the chisel hewing the stone, the teeth in the food, the knife in the flesh, reason dominated by impulse.” (Paul Neagu, 1975). Inside the artist’s iconographies it is represented by the geometric figure of the triangle, located at the Hyphen’s base, also a symbol for the first level of human awareness, followed by Horizontal Rain (human culture and civilisation, a system built through rational actions) and by Going Tornado (the act of breaking free, transcendence).
 
The „Blind Bite” performance series started in 1971 at Sigi Krauss Gallery in London with the famous „Cake Man” – an edible installation made of waffles and honey arranged in the shape of a human silhouette-anthropocosmic figure, consumed by the public – and repeated in various versions in 1972 and 1975. In some of these, Paul Neagu blindfolded the audience in order to emphasise the perceptively fresh and pure senses, other than sight – in the spirit of the „Palpable Art Manifesto” issued by the artist in 1969 – highlighting the instinctual experience of feeding, with touch, smell and taste:
 
„In my work, Blind Bite could be about the basic human conflict, a happening, an intervention, or a tactile object, and it always connects to the roots of perception.”
(Paul Neagu, 1975)
 
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Paul Neagu (Bucharest, 1938 – London, 2004) has lived and worked in England since 1970, when he left Romania. Important artists, such as Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, Tony Cragg, were among his students and asserted the importance of the artistic paths of exploration that Neagu opened. His works can be found in many public collections amongst which are The Arts Council of Great Britain, The National Museum of Arts (Romania), The National Museum of Modern Art (Tokio), The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, The Tate Gallery (London), The Victoria and Albert Museum (London).
 
The „Blind Bite” exhibition is organised together with the Paul Neagu Estate (UK) and is the artist’s third solo-show at Ivan Gallery, after the 2012 „Cake Man” performance reenactment and „Going Tornado” in 2014. The exhibition can be visited between 30 June – 05 September 2015, Tuesday-Saturday, 11:00-19:00.
 
Works by Paul Neagu take part in the first edition of Vienna Biennale, at MAK, 11 June – 4 October 2015, and between 13 August – 8 November 2015 the Henry More Institute in Leeds, Great Britain, will organise the solo-show Paul Neagu: Palpable Sculpture.
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