Works
About
The second exhibition in the series Gaep Presents features two artists that have been part of the mentorship projects for emerging artists ACCELERATOR, reflecting the gallery’s commitment to highlight new voices.
Vlad Albu’s new structures from his ongoing series Holders confront us with a tense situation. Round objects balance precariously on the edges of other objects. A fluid glass tube is tightly held between two metal bars. Another one rests on the lip of a narrow shelf. At any moment, something can go wrong. The possibility of things going over the edge – both literally and metaphorically – hangs in the air. We become aware of our own presence in the space and of our own agency with regard to this fragile equilibrium. Will the objects continue to hold each other? Will we manage to hold on?
These sculptural pieces reflect the artist’s inquiry into the ontology of objects – their existence beyond their function as a tool for us – and the ability of things, together, to generate effects and shift outcomes – what philosopher Jane Bennett calls “thing-power”. Holders stage a meeting between objects that seem on the brink of falling or changing direction and objects that act as caring, albeit imperfect, forms of maintenance and protection. To fully grasp the works’ resonance, though, is to enter the kinesthetic register. When one becomes mindful of the body’s movement in relation to these structures and the space they inhabit, the series turns into an embodied metaphor for systems of mutual support, poised between tenuous stability and potential breakdown.
The artist imagines his sculptures starting from familiar elements of the built environment (roofs, handrails, shelves, etc.) only to deconstruct their pragmatic functionality and eschew the contemporary logic of efficiency and utility. Instead, he re-routes our attention to other imperatives: to hold and to care. For Vlad Albu, these are fields of inquiry situated at the crossroads of human and non-human, personal and political, real and speculative. As María Puig de la Bellacasa says, “care is always a political and ethical issue, even when it takes the form of a seemingly simple gesture of support.”[1]
Living on the edge, with a care-oriented mode of thinking, takes on a different form in Roberta Curcă’s drawings and objects. She makes use of prefabricated, ready-made systems – such as calendars, samplers, stencils, and palettes – to organize an abundance of thoughts and emotions. The impersonal logic of these templates is neutralized by the deeply personal imagery and texts that populate her works. They absorb a day/month/season/year’s worth of feelings (as fragile as rosehip), concerns (ecologiile grijii), autobiographical notes (soție de brutar 4:30), experiences (I treat my burnout with painting), readings (‘Abolish the family’ – Sophie Lewis), observations (we hate the privileging of individual angst), self-reflections (tired of living in grids), occurrences (Harry Styles in the morning, Killa Fonic after work), and gestures (note taking, ordering). Sometimes they are neatly placed inside a grid, and sometimes they spill across the page like a waterfall of marks.
This pendular dynamic – between structured arrangement and instinctive impulse – speaks to the slipperiness of time. The artist’s intent is to lock fleeting moments into visual records and to make sense of the passage of time and one’s experience within it. Her endeavor is anchored in a daily studio practice that includes diaristic entries, visual journaling, calligraphy exercises, and consistent work on drawings for which she reviews, selects, systematizes, and builds upon existing material. The results resist hierarchy. No single element in the drawings is more important than another – a “leveling out” that can be read existentially: everything matters, every moment is special, and it’s the artist’s task to register its subtle vibrations, whether high or low.
If, as Mel Bochner says, “types of order are forms of thoughts”[2], then Roberta Curcă’s methodical organization of material into daily drawings, monthly calendars, seasonal notes, and yearly samplers amounts to a personal system for meditating on lived experience. That is, on time felt, lived and acted. Her work reclaims standardized ways of presenting information and repurposes them in service of a kind of experience that is best understood through stories and art.
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Inaugurated in July 2024 with a solo show by Adrian Cojocaru, Gaep Presents is a programme of exhibitions that focuses on work by emerging artists and established collaborators of the gallery other than the artists it represents. The programme builds upon the four iterations of ACCELERATOR, the mentorship projects for emerging artists in which Gaep has been a partner since 2022, and on diverse collaborations with artists that the gallery established in over ten years of activity.
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VLAD ALBU (b. 1992, lives and works in Bucharest) has completed both his BA and MA studies in the Photography and Dynamic Image department at the National University of Arts in Bucharest. In his practice he often combines photography, found materials, and designed structures/objects. The works revolve around exploring the intersection between public and private spaces, methods of understanding the future of objects and dwelling, with a deliberate blend of speculative elements and imaginative narratives. He has shown his work in solo exhibitions at SwitchLab, 2/3 Gallery and Galeria Posibilă in Bucharest and Aici Acolo Pop Up Gallery in Cluj-Napoca, as well as in group exhibitions at Sector 1, Atelier 35, Salonul de Proiecte, Ivan Gallery and Cazul 101, all in Bucharest, and HSBI in Bielefeld, Germany. Vlad participated in the mentorship project ACCELERATOR Câmpulung (2024).
ROBERTA CURCĂ (b. 1991) is a Bucharest-based artist working with drawing, photographic typologies, objects, and artist books. In her work she employs a systematic investigation into various types of structures, objects or the visuality of objects, often displayed as archives, technical drawings, notes, swatches, or other forms used to organize and display information. She often explores the dynamic between the rational and the arbitrary, two- and three-dimensional states, intent and impact, the human and the non-human. She has a BA and an MA in Drawing from the National University of Arts in Bucharest and has done research in cultural studies at CESI – Center of Excellence in Image Studies. Her work has been shown at Gaep, Sector 1, Ivan Gallery, and Atelier 35 in Bucharest; Zina Gallery and MATCA art space in Cluj-Napoca; Accademia di Romania in Rome; Kunsthalle Bega and the 2022 Beta Architecture Biennial in Timișoara. Roberta was one of the artists participating in ACCELERATOR. Mentoring and Production for Emerging Artists (2022–2023).
[1] María Puig de la Bellacasa, Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds, University of Minnesota Press, 2017
[2] Mel Bochner, The Serial Attitude, Artforum, December 1967
