“In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile—and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts 

together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our

crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep.”

Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt, 1979

 

movable and detachable improvisation i made for tonight's exhibition of customized boards at Ne placa
ce faci. started out as a ceremonial mask inspired by Oceanic and American-Indian artwork, went through
Pitagora's pentagram propeller and culminated in a scale of mystical opposition and ballance. well, you
catch my dizzy drift...there was a whole lot of metaphysical mechanics involved ;)

 

 

 

the barefoot bride/mireasa desculță

 

 

Part of an installation about censorship that was showcased at Atelier 35 gallery in Bucharest.

Contains a 3 portrait story about the censoring of a Romanian play in 1958. Based on some 15 inter-

views, recollections, collected archive documents and biographies, this comic booklet took 1 month

to make and print. The concept belongs to Alexandru Berceanu, who was the coordonator and

gatherer of suspect materials. The event was initiated by Ofensiva Generozității Organization and

published thanks to the kind back-up of the National Cultural Fund Administration (A.F.C.N.).
One month of everyday drawing altogether, and a fucked up month that was...but it was worth it.

 

 

In 1956 the Romanian Workers' Party (P.M.R.) decides to open a theatre in Galați (a small city on

the banks of the Danube). They bring together a fresh batch of graduates from the National University

of Theatre and Cinematography in Bucharest, a small team of technicians, who've just finished their

studies at the local highschools, and two directors in charge of running the show: Ștefan Iordănescu

and Crin Teodorescu. They deicide to invite the young and up-rising director, Valeriu Moisescu, to

handle most of the spectacles. The outcome of this initiative was hard to put together. Questions around

the Fani Tardini Theatre in Galați got us few and very blurry answers. The story of the comics was

pieced together around one play in particular from 1958. Directed by Valeriu Moisescu, and featuring

Gina Patrichi in the leading role, Mireasa Desculță was a play advertising the agricultural cooperativi-

zation that was commenced back in 1949 by the P.M.R. party. The preceding movement in agri-

culture put together by Stalin meant that around 15 million peasants were deported. In Romania the

results were less dramatic, however, back then the country's population was formed by some 75%

peasants. Party officials regularly ordered this sort of plays from writers as a means to educate villagers

about the "unity" and "richness" of their collectivization efforts. Theatre companies frequently made

tours around vast areas promoting the Party's precious teachings. Ironically, Mireasa Desculță, a play

of the Communist propaganda, wound up being censored.

 

 

We met up with 3 former electricians from that time, an upholsterer and one souffleur, but they

couldn't recollect much, except for some technical details. A few had fond memories of their youth

yet despite their efforts to remember this play in particular, none were able. So we finally traced the

last living actor from the cast, one 82 year old Leonard Calea. He and his wife managed to add a few

more valuable pieces to the growing puzzle. In the end we visited the director himself, the secluded,

quiet but charismatic Valeriu Moisescu. He still kept an incredible amount of newspaper clips from

that period, photos and detailed sketches of sets. Still, he had difficulty remembering. He told us that 

the play was run only 10 times, and terminated after being showcased at the Bucharest Drama Festival

of 1958. Also, Mr Moisescu filled us in on his unlikely interpretation of the text of the play. Originally

written by Suto Andras, Mireasa Desculță was a boring, uneventful and tedious 70 page play. Moisescu

cut it up, added dynamic through the use of a turning stage and contrived a mechanism of hypnotizing

the villagers through speakers. Rumour was started by the art-critic of that time, "God" Dumitru Popescu,

that a play with speaks and a turning stage had nothing to do with the image of the peasant of that time.

So Moisescu was fired but hired by the Theatre in Oradea, the press had few words of praise and almost

everyone forgot the play.

The 32 page booklet came out on newspaper, in 1000 copies, and features a silkscreen printed layer on the last inner

cover. This layer is meant to be peeled off, under it rest the real facts about president Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej's

cooperativization campaign, which was completed in 1962. In the installation, that contained this booklet, visitors were

expected to censor the text and images from the comics. Each censurer had 1 hour to complete his cultural mission.

The collection of corrections was displayed in November 2012 at Atelier 35 Gallery.

riding a helix poking the sky

mireasa

preview of the comics i was working on, more pics to come

been pretty busy working on a 30 page comic about censorship in the Romanian theatre around the 1950s. will be back with
more updates as soon as i shake off the time warp i've woven. till then, if you're in Bucharest visit the installation containing
the comics at Atelier 35. the comic book took 1 month in the making, documenting, digesting and regurgitating. above are a
few of the latest entries in my sketchbook.

the itch is something i can't get rid of.

alternate universe ego

One of my weird comics was featured in this year's catalogue of Novo Doba Festival! Muahahaha!...

Famnaz festival in Pancevo, Serbia, clogged our collective arteries for two days, on the 24th and 25th of August.
Was invited to pump some fresh blood representing Cristian Prandea's recent collection of Romanian comic artists,
through the Jungle  book. In one hap-hazardous night i ran into Johanna Marcade of the Novo Doba festival, part of
the team in charge of the Symposion project, Svetlana Nikolin's Collection of old Armenian songs and one Miroslav
Lazendić of Greed Graphics, to name a few of the bubbles that kept popping up throughout. This was the festival's 1st
edition, hope they keep up the lude work! Almost forgot, Anamaria of Jumatatea Plina bookstore sent me 2 copies of
Alex Tamba's latest comic book Mila 23, with the purpose of showcasing it at Famnez. It's a mind boggling ensemble
of great composition, clean visual rhythm and finel spun storytelling, read it if you get the chance.

sus în Apuseni

We're too busy queueing for a Happy Meal to realize what we've left behind.  All the pictures above were shot at 
The Natural History and Archeology Museum in Constanța. Sau despre cum suntem prea preocupați cu inte-
grarea în finit să ne mai uităm înapoi . Când timpul se măsoară în bani nu ne mai permitem să stăm pe gânduri
decât în rate.

32/24 cm din Lacul Fundeni, acum vreun an.

Been talking so much shit lately i thought it wiser to turn it into a comics and send it to Kuti

Mr Vladimir Palibrk's just sent me 2 copies of the Distorted Mirror book he's recently published in Belgrade. Features the
works of some 47 dealers in the obscure parallel universe of dreams, myself included. The tales revolve round celebrities
in our distorted b/w reveries. 

Shit-squirting is the preferred sport of politics. Unlike your average game of mud-fighting, the traditional crap-tossing
is back on all Romanian TV stations. Same old shit's as fresh today as it was back in Basquiat's time. This turn round it's
party A drowning party B in manure. And even though the popular Antena 3 TV channel's basking in prime-time glory,
whilst sinking former president Basescu's shit-ship, its affiliation to the CNN network doesn't smell like dandelions
either. Basescu should've drowned long ago, but hey, i guess his slow demise makes a grander come-back for  Iliescu's
fan club at USL and turns former prime minister Bombonel Năstase into a national hero, through his recent incarcera-
tion (at Basescu's request).
This has been one of the toughest posts for me because day in day out all my family and friends seem to be discussing
are the upcoming elections. I'll vote on Sunday but i'm afraid that Romania's still in the midsts of the familiar ball
game between the U.S.A., Russia and the E.U. regardless of a Basescu, Iliescu or Antonescu. Rosia Montana, i expect,
might still get blasted off the face of the map, but anyway...perhaps  Arthur C. Clark's quote, from Jawaharlal Nehru,
makes more sense than my scato-scented ramblings.

after almost 4 long years of living and working in Bucharest i'm saying goodbye to all its quirks and perks!

www #2: 18 copies (out of the 40 ever printed) await at Libraria Jumatatea Plina, 4th floor  MNAC

Haven't been able to post too  much this year.This is partially due to a considerable quantum of laziness. However, i'm trying
to make up for lost time with this quick collage, a sort of round up containing a small caloric dose of my work this year. So
here goes: one cripple Madonna illustration for FHM magazine , some illustrations für the Puls manual (Synopsis Media),
one jolly Sandi Bell for Street Delivery, a heart full of fists and toes for the Contemporary Dance Centre Bucharest, a voluptu-
ous pair of lips for 1 t-shirt project, rejected logo proposal for UNATC's rebranding contest, a sticker & bag for One World
Film Club...and let me see if i've missed anything.. a yes, several illustrated typo characters for my brother's online radio  at
its 1st year anniversary und ein bisschen doodle for Ivana Mladenovic and Ana Iliesu's film selected at Tribeca 2012.

One of the websites that i worked on this spring is taralovistei.ro. The project took a while to
start up, and a couple of intermediary versions to finally get to what you see above. The end
result is not exactly what i'd intended it to be, but the marriage of  design with programming
is never an easy affair. Asociatia Odaia Creativa created the concept, gathered the materials
and were in charge of  coordinating the entire project. While their friends at Best Web Image
were entrusted with the application of the whole she-bang i call web design. The map, logo,
layout, icons and illustrations are mein arbeit.

Thankfully, Irina Paraschivoiu was once again the manager of the job, and a fine job she did.
Take some time to read the stories they've gathered from around the Tara Lovistei area. The
site will grow, Bogdan Arnheim will add some more tourist trails, and in time i hope it will
become a handy guide to the region. You might remember Odaia Creativa from their previous
projects: the game Habitat and the Guide to Urban Situations in Bucharest.

intro to one more short story.
flip thru this is not a love song here: issuu

they call on a chimp to preach order and to erase all that is deemed either uncontrolable or
incomprehensible, by one authority or another. The Romanian Cultural Institute's  been
handed to the Senate for clean-up. When chimp  learns to copy his way up to Prime
Minister  you can't help but wonder what's left of culture and education anyway?

while we wait #2

 40 copies, some errors, 4 types of paper, 3 methods of print, all handsewn. more infoz suun.

tree story