Page 53 - World of Art magazine (2000)

vASiLe pop-negresteanu romania

Born on December 28th, 1955 Negresti-oas, Bucharest Romania; 1995 art Museum Baia Mare, ing at cotroceni presidential palace, Bucharest
Romania. Museum of Negresti-oas Romania; 1997 palace of Romania; 1989 Museum of Brancoveni Nunnery,
eDuCATiOn 1976-1981 The Fine arts academy the parliament of Romania, Bucharest Romania; fresco, 400 x 1200 cm., Romania; 1997 The last
”N. Grigorescu”, Bucharest, Monumental art and 1999 Museum of archaeology and History, Baia dinner, oil on canvas, 180 x 600 cm., the chapel
Restauration section. Mare Romania. of the Hospital, Negresti-oas, Romania.
MeMbeRShiP Since 1984 Member of The Roma- inTeRnATiOnAL eXhibiTiOnS (selective) 1990 WORkS in COLLeCTiOnS National Museum
nian Fine arts union-uap. Miniature, Hyperion Gallery ottawa, canada, 1991 cotroceni Bucharest Romania, art Museums of
PARTiCiPATiOnS Since 1978 Vasile pop-Negres- Majdaneck poland; 1992 First Biennial exhibition Satu Mare, Baia Mare, ploiesti, Museum of oas
teanu participated in all official exhibitions of of contemporary art of the Francophile countries, country, Romania; Negresti-oas and other private
contemporary art organized in Bucharest and in San Senart France; 1993 Mozart Variations-Museo collections in Romania and abroad.
some of the exhibitions organized in other towns della carta e della Filigrana, Fabriano italy; 1999 STuDiO ADDReSS #30 carol i Blvd., 2nd floor,
of Romania: Satu Mare, Baia Mare, Negresti-oas, international Drawing Salon, arad Romania. Sector 3, 70433 Bucharest Romania. Tel 0040
Tirgoviste. WORkS Of MOnuMenTAL ART 1982-1989 Works 1 6508604 Tel 0040 1 3204792 Fax: 0040 1
PeRSOnAL eXhibiTiOnS 1994 orizont Galleries, of restorations and monumental-decorative paint- 2105871

For what reason do we constantly need to each of us - child and adult - the yearning for any classificatory approach is the point of
represent some Other World emerging into objectifying other worlds. view, which operates this distinction. The
our lives every time these last ones suffer Other World or After World - this is handiest one analyses the emplacement of the
any individually or socially meant disconti- only a matter of perception over these frontier. The most common emplacement of
nuities? Leaving apart dogmatic needs for profoundly normal, psychologically proved, the kind places the boundary on the side of
ontological legitimization, rests - psychologi- human needs. Understanding this means step- our limit between ourselves and something
cally ready - the receptacle to be filled with ping inside our shared (more or less) patri- else; this very limit is to be, and so will be,
over frontiers, transgressing, and imagery. mony and entrusting at least our propensity ritually instituted. It is a way to observe that
This wide range of mental representations for “reversed” living-world-order stories with the only boundary we can come to know
over the other world belong, as an essential axiological legitimacy. is our side 0/the limit; whatever would be
component, to every spiritual tradition of all Not even one of the analysis over the impact placed on the other side is to be explored by
times, places and civilizations, even if one of the images of the Other World can avoid means of cognitive and conceptual categories
could define our modern time taste and pro- a reality that every mythology asserts, that is of the world as known to us; so that the
pensity for other worlds and dimensions as that: there is an osmosis between This World Other World is to be “defined” as congruent
a fashionable quest. The amount of informa- and the Other Worlds, operated at precisely with any of the stated spaces of symbolic
tion these descriptions of transgressing the those moments and at those spots where a topography. Or as an Interval of beyond the
limits between the two worlds lighten could shift of the limitary border-plans becomes limits of our world and aside those of the
be perceived as overwhelming; we do have, possible and opens the translation of materia. other one, as a space of non-creation, un-
though, some means to quantify it: as Principles and living agents in between. Such formed, diffusion, peopled by entities which
I.P.Culianu says (1997, Introducere), the moments occur usually by the time of collec- lack in onthic determinations, but do possess
degree of elaboration of the vision of the tive, or restraint collective - that is family - some sort of an interface with and for mun-
Other World is directly proportional with the shared feasts, or in all magic-manipulating dane reality so that they seek for the man, in
degree of elaboration of the corresponding situations, and these facts are heavily dem- order to obtain those missing identity deter-
religion. onstrated by the careful study of Romanian minations.
This assumption complicates the picture: customs and mythological imagery. The only In this second acceptation, the interval
first, because it is really hard to state that thing to happen is to cause and sustain / would be that area of beyond the limits,
it is only religion to deal with “legitimate” describe somehow the necessary break into of beyond the existing orders of both This
representations of the Other World; second, the order of normal present so that other World and the Afterworld and excluded by
because religious feelings are as typically mental dimensions may burst into actuality both of them, before being part of any of
human as any awareness of transcendent and meet somehow our rationality. them. Its space is a kind of trap, where one
reality, so that magically-instrumented TRying TO say something about those frac- can only wander without aim; its time is not
representations confound their origins ture points where the contact between the humanly linear, but, on the contrary, circular
(within collective mentalities) with religious two worlds becomes possible, essential for and typically lost; as for the entities that
mythical roots; and populate this space, they
third, because Culianu’s seem to appear, for the
statement is just another traditional imaginary, as
way to express the idea longing For the other worlds purely energetic as
that we can comprehend humans are material.
one of the forms of What matters for our
representing the Other M el a N c H o lY V eR SuS a N G u i S H means of studying tradi-
World, but the inte- tional imagery - Roma-
grated vision which nian or not - is that
bases the representation BY ileana Benga the great majority of the
remains remote. stories implying beings
For those who deny from the other world are
the relevance of this inquiry of ours within ileana Benga dealing only with the “earthly” point of view,
the context of our secularized society, we AnThROPOLOgiST whereas the impact of a certain event for the
would emphasize onto the hunting for honor The fOLkLORe ARChive Of The extra-mundane entity seems not to interest
literature or cinematography that character- ROMAniAn ACADeMy inSTiTuTe in neither the story-teller nor the message of its
izes our modern leisure-time; onto the ava- CLuj-nAPOCA ROMAniA tale.
lanche of stimuli our culture urges to besiege niCOLAie iORgA SChOLARShiP feLLOW AT The We do have a huge amount of information
us with, in order to manipulate those con- ROMAniAn inSTiTuTe Of CuLTuRe AnD concerning traditional beliefs about the
stant traits in our imaginary which cause in huMAniSTiC ReSeARCh in veniCe iTALy beings that populate the Other Worlds, would »

Special iSSue 2000 WORLD of ART 51