The title of the exhibition is inspired by a poem-manifesto written by artist Alex Mirutziu in 2015.
"Because in our dreams we took risks", one of the lines of this manifesto, transforms the burden
of a verdict into a connecting knot for different generations. This knot temporarily weaves
together chronological threads, historical narratives and cultural landmarks that make up a multilayered
image of the art before and after 1989, as it is represented in the present exhibition – a
cut-out from the Ovidiu Şandor collection. Taken as a landmark for the change of the political
regime and also for the clash between illusions and disillusions, the year 1989 is marked in the
exhibition through a documentary section in which photography and film (Andrei Pandele, Radu
Grindei, Andrei Ujică & Harun Farocki) claim their power to grasp the instant reality, while the
tension between "pure" truth and constructed truth brings out questions that are still valid today.
Another section of the exhibition brings together a series of portraits and self-portraits of the
artists, personal microhistories that value their artistic autonomy and the creative laboratory as a
space of absolute freedom (Ştefan Bertalan, Constantin Flondor, Adrian Ghenie, Ion Grigorescu,
Ana Lupaş, Florin Mitroi, Christian Paraschiv, Decebal Scriba). The artists vacillate between
continuous searches of their own identity marks and the lucid scanning of the context surrounding
them, of the unaltered reality and its anonymous and marginal actors (Ioana Bătrânu, Ion
Bârlădeanu, Michele Bressan, Bogdan Gîrbovan, Şerban Savu), inevitably affected by the events
that made history, such as Mineriada, illustrated in the poster of the exhibition The Book (Miklos
Onucsan). In parallel, utopian constructions continue, from the colonization of galaxies (Vlad
Nancă) and imagining an infinite column that connects the human DNA to outer space (Mircea
Cantor), to the dream of immortality that takes the place of existential desperation. Because in
our dreams we took risks, after waking up, reality becomes only one face of existence, while
remorses and fears fade away.
Curated by Diana Marincu
Courtesy of the artists and Art Encounters Foundation
Photocredit infi.ro