Starting Wednesday, January 12, 2022, for one month, the solo exhibition of the visual artist Ion Anghel may be visited at Senso Gallery in Bucharest (Calea Victoriei 12C), event which opens this year’s exhibition program. Curated by Ana Daniela Sultana, the exhibition titled “Retroactiv” (“Retroactive”) marks the beginning of a new series of projects proposed by Ana Ștefania Andronic (BUZU), artistic director of Senso Gallery. “Retroactiv” remains open to public until February 12, 2022.
Ion Anghel is a visual artist, curator and lecturer at the Department of Painting at the University of Arts in Bucharest. Ion Anghel is a member of the Union of Plastic Artists (Ro. UAP), holding the position of Chairman of the Honor, Discipline and Arbitration Commission. He has been awarded numerous prizes and is also the author of several important exhibitions held in museums and galleries throughout the country.
„Retroactiv – Ion Anghel’s second solo exhibition at Senso Gallery – opens the gallery’s 2022 exhibition program and brings together the artist’s latest works, which despite their newness, refer, as the title suggests, to an appetite for the recent past. Combining painting, sculpture, collage and assemblage, the exhibition selection indicates, on the one hand, in an assertive way (and recurrently, if we think of another solo exhibition of his in 2013, at the Romanian Peasant Museum) a style deeply influenced by Arte Povera, and on the other hand reveals Ion Anghel’s relationship with the objects he collects and integrates into his works. These seemingly banal elements each have their own story, their own destiny, to which the artist adds new meaning and significance through surprising juxtapositions full of substance. Thus, the mark of Ion Anghel’s artistic approach comes not only from the need for innovation, but also from the assumption of the specificity that his artistic practice implies, being situated at the confluence of several layers. The pedagogical spirit overlaps with the act of creation, the role of the artist interferes with that of the curator or collector, similar to the way Ion Anghel uses splashes of color over assemblages or textile material over collages.” (Ana Daniela Sultana)
“Lots of stuff has been piling up around me and it’s time to clean up. With great diligence I gathered around me everything I thought was useful, and just like a crazy old woman I surrounded myself with things that buried me. Of course I don’t blame my past and I see the point of it, but I believe that from time to time a fight can have a cleansing role. It’s like shaking the fruitful tree. Not all of them will fall off, only the ripe ones… or the rotten. Next I’m going to make a delight out of the good and a vice out of the bad. So here are my thoughts, that have taken shape in my work.” (Ion Anghel)