Urmuz,Victor Brauner,Gherasim Luca,Dolfi Trost,Paul Păun,Gellu Naum and Paul Celan were spotted inhabiting one rectangle, some micron bitcoins ago.

limited edition silksreen prints, pișcoturi, comics and jiggling juices.
this Saturday, 16th of Brumaire, 18:00 over here

days drag on

prinde orbu' scoate-i ochii!

FULL COMICS here!

Short story long, in case it all looks too tangled up in images:

I live in a country much like any other 2nd world country. On the fringes of the 1st world, drilled by corporate interests

and dismantled by political corruption. Romania's currently facing a heavy load of ecological dangers and social dis-

array. Mining projects threaten our natural environment, stray dogs are going to be euthanized on the conveyor belt,

while we watch televised translations and debates about the elephant in the living room. Ignorance used to be bliss.

Gabriel Resources is an international gold corporation that's been pushing for 13 years to grab Romanian resources

through a mining project in the Carpathian mountains. The government's recently drafted a special law, tailored to fit

the corporate demands. The outcome of their agreement will be a natural disaster, consisting of a crater visible form

outer space and a cyanide dumping ground of unimaginable proportions. Romania stands to gain 6% of all the exploits

(which include the largest golden deposit in the E.U. and vast quantities of rare metals such as Gallium estimated at 4

times the value of gold).

But our national crisis isn't just about corporate crap. The area that Gabriel Resources is aiming at is one unique histo-

rical heritage. The Rosia Montana area has been exploited through mining for at least a thousand years. Romans invaded

the country, back in the hay day, expressly for the gold in this area. The Roman triumph is the theme of  Trajan's Column

in Rome. There are mine networks stretching out underground the entire region, some even older than the Roman ones.

This  soon to be crater, is a significant slice of history.

Politicians are struggling to sell what's left of the country, with former Communist party members still pulling the admini-

strative strings. The Gabriel Corporation Crisis is a final drop in a cup all too full. The Danube Delta's soon to be sold, parts

of the Black Sea coast are already property of Chevron and if turmoil continues there'll be a wave of exodus.

At the end of the day, all the corporate craters and political decay will be left to the ordinary "low-life" citizen to clean up.

Unfortunately we're all too comfortable sweeping reality under the rug.

Our government assures us that our future is in good hands with Gabriel Resources.Here's a cinematographic insight, detail-
ing both camps' opinions on the project. Also, a great article (in Romanian) with a ton of sollutions to Romania's golden
crisis. The article is  written by a Romanian employee of the World Bank in Washington, a strong opponent of the
mining scheme.

Sleep tight dear Romanians!

The Romanian government recently approved a law granting Rosia Montana Gold Corp. the right to start exploiting gold in the Carpathian mountains. The law was deemed of national importance, even though the contents of the contract between the Romanian state and the Corporation have not been disclosed to the public. This project will be the largest and most dangerous of its kind in Europe and the state will only obtain 6% of the gold exploits, while the above mentioned corporation will also uncover galium and silver, amongst other national resources. So far most of the country's dreaming about hell-knows-what-kind-of-a-pink-peachy-future as the Corporation has monopole on all television channels in Romania (as they've bought them over and played their tear-jerking commercials during prime-time). Here is a clearer outlook on the situation, in English & here's the Romanian translation from a Romanian member of the European Parlament

doodles and typo tribulations for this future EVENT's poster

Origami Sound invited me to do a cover for Hostage's release on their label. The graphical approach was the Scotsman's
idea. He would have preferred a woodcut, but since I was lacking the required amount of cojones involved in the carving
procedure we agreed that a linocut would do. ¡Gracias Grigore for the technical support & Calamansi for intermediating! 

Teleleu

 Been calling up a variety of créateurs and creatures to show-case their sketchbooks for Vice magazine Romania. What
was supposed to be a weekly dose of my dreary works, later oozed into this  egregious collection of notable specimina
from the local illustration/comics/visual arts fauna.

Added a new  sketchbook on the site. Temporarily dangling in a placid state, made a few doodles and wrapped up deadlines,
while waiting for a prolonged break

panem et circenses

while we wait #3

22 by 22 centimeters of comics and illustration panels the length of 36 pages. The hardcover is silkscreen printed  in 2 colors, one of which is embossed. Contains 5 types of paper, was printed at Fabrik in Bucharest and on the home printer. While we wait#3 was launched during the White Night of Galleries in Bucharest and is handsewn, available in a limited edition of 100 copies. The exhibition's still open till Wednesday the 5th of June, more info here. Available next week at Libraria Jumatatea Plina and Anthony Frost English Bookshop.

while we whistle

working on While we wait #3, hectic as usual. if you want to check the mutant results of this experiment tune in for the launch during Noaptea Galeriilor here! Undeva pe Strada Amzei la nr. 5, lângă pizzeria dinspre Calea Victoriei.  

silkscreen screaming

Part of last month's silkscreen-printing crop. All barbaric acts of sewing, ironing and ink spilling were done in the claustrophobic comfort of home.

check the czechs

This Saturday, in Temišvar, some typographic weight lifting and graphic-steroid pumping at  Typopassage

much ado about nothing. working's left me with crumbs of time. decided to feed them to the birds.

parole parole parole

♥♥♥ folded pornographic melodrama for Jumatatea Plina Bookstore's Valentine special ♠♠♠

que sera sera

"...reproductions are still used to bolster the illusion that nothing has changed, that art, with its unique undiminished
authority, justifies most other forms of authority, that art makes inequality seem noble and hierarchies seem thrilling."
taken from Ways of seeing by John Berger

Au!

"seeing seems to be a rather calculating business"

CLICK image to enlarge, perspectives induced by repeated blows to the head using Marshall McLuhan's War and Peace in the global village

“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.