Presecan's Soul Touch

Last January I wrote an article on Checkout[ART] about my personal point of view on the Romanian ante and post-revolutionary art scene. Scroll down and read it: The important point, for me, resumes at before and after 1989, a turning point in the Romanian history, a year which marked the official break down of communism in the country. CLAUDIU PRESECAN'S "REEDS III", 2009 For those who didn’t live the 80s in Romania, for those strangers to Romania who cannot imagine what “darkness” we lived in, I can say that even now, after more than 20 years, I still notice the same thing: the degree of ignorance and isolation the authorities kept us in. I do not refer to the material deprivations, but most of all to the spiritual and cultural ones. It was an ignorance of contemporaneousness, of information, of everything that happens in the free world. There is much to discuss about this subject and maybe it is well-known what the communist propaganda and politics meant, but...

I just come back from Austria where I had an exhibition in Graz. I had several discussions concerning art market with different artists and curators, what makes art rise in a community or a city… all the individual efforts are quite good, for instance there is now in Cluj a new cultural centre in an old brush factory, but without the implication of the government there aren’t many chances for a solid cultural and artistic movement or market. I found this article, sustaining the same idea, about Berlin and how the German government supports art and culture, “ making Berlin the largest gallery location in Europe” in Checkout [ART], a very good dialogue about contemporary art, “what artists are doing, what galleries are exhibiting, what collectors are putting in their homes and offices”