Stefan Constantinescu - Vector - critical research in context

ştefan constantinescu

an infinite blue

This installation is a re-enactment of my first experience as a painter working on commission at the Army

General Headquarters. The paintings and the photographs reflect on my first interaction as a young man and

artist with the authority system.

The autumn of 1986 at the age of 17, I was enrolled in the army, 150 Km south of Bucharest. Because I had an

uncle who defected to Sweden, I was enrolled in a disciplinary unit actually designed for soldiers and army

personal with disciplinary issues. I was working at a mill carrying bags of flour all day long. It was hard,

working 12 hours a day and cleaning the place after.

My mother was desperate and called on all her connections to help me move out of there. Having

graduated from an art college, my mother's relations managed to obtain a transfer for me at the Army General

Headquarters as an official painter's apprentice.

The main task was to paint a series of murals depicting scenes from Romanian history, starting with the

founding fathers and ending with Nicolae Ceausescu. The work was under the supervision of master painter

Ghelu Horia and the team members were Corina, the master's assistant, and myself. Corina was the one who

painted most of the composition while the master focused on the portraits. Because I was just an apprentice, I

would wash the paint brushes, prepare the backgrounds and sometimes paint minor characters.

For each scene we would first make a small lay out that the commissioners would correct. The head of

the commission, was general Ilie Ceausescu the dictator's brother. He would often come and check on our

work in progress. He was a quiet man who kept to himself most of the time. He would walk through the room

and whistle to himself as he inspected the paintings.

During his work visits he was often accompanied by a couple of other generals and colonels. Their

comments were very direct and precise.

We weren't allowed to use green, because it was considered to be a fascist color, or black which

symbolized death. These were some of their comments:

"The woman on the right looks Chinese, change her face." or

"The horse is badly painted, as if it was made of stone. Too much grey."

The most difficult part was painting Ceausescu's portrait: the space between his eyes turned out rather

large making him look mentally challenged. That is why the three of us were terribly worried that our artistic

inability might be interpreted as an act of sabotage.

Ştefan Constantinescu (b. 1968 in Bucharest) is a visual artist and a film director. In 2010 he participated in the Bucharest Biennale 4, where he presented the installation An Infinite Blue. In the same year The Seductiveness of the Interval was remade and exhibited at The Renaissance Society Museum in Chicago. In 2009, he represented Romania at The Venice Biennale, with the films Passagen and "Troleibuzul 92". In 2009 he co-directed with Julio Sotto the film My Beautiful Dacia, a portrayal of Romania`s transition from Communism to Capitalism through the story of the Dacia automobile, an emblem of Communist Romania. The film’s premier was at the Montréal World Film Festival and in 2010 the film was awarded the second prize at the Documenta Madrid Festival. In 2008 he conceived The Golden Age for Children, a pop-up book about the last 20 years of the communist regime in Romania. In 2007, Ştefan had a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. Selected group exhibitions: The social critique 1993-2005, Kalmar Konstmuseum Sweden, 2009; Dada East? Romanian Context of Dadaism, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2008; indirect speech, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 2006. He is currently working on a series of fiction films 7 Nuances of Grey and the group project The Iron Curtain, a box of memory. Ştefan Constatinescu lives and works in Stockholm and Bucharest.