In a period in which art is mainly conceived as three-dimensional sculpture and installation, and painting seems to have lost its appeal, Victor Man (born in Cluj, Romania, 1974) is one of the few contemporary painters, who have been able to stay in the global art loop. ‘Member’ of the so-called Cluj School — a prolific source of up-and-coming artistic experiences that counts artists working with different media such as Adrian Ghenie, Ciprian Mureşan, Mircea Cantor, Şerban Savu, among the others —, Man started his career in 2003 exhibiting at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the City Art Museum of Ljubljana and, after several exhibitions around the world, he represented his country at the 52nd Venice Art Biennial.
Victor Man’s work is characterized by the fusion of meditative, mainly nocturnal, small size paintings full of mystery, usually exhibited in site-specific installations, which dialogue with the viewers and the surrounded space. Using references and essential elements taken from history and history of art, literature, cinema and archive photography, mixing past and present, the artist creates unique compositions: narrations made of decontextualized objects that analyze the concept of memory and the impact on the world of the passage of time. Reflecting on tradition, nostalgia, eroticism, gender identity, political and social issues, Man’s poetic is related to personal and collective feelings and explores the uncertainty and the ambiguity of human beings through a learned and versatile use of painting.
For those who want to know something more about this Romanian artist, and have the occasion to end up in Rome by the 3rd September 2013, we strongly suggest his exhibition In un altro aprile at the Académie de France à Rome, which presents a series of recent paintings, along with works created by Man during his two-months residence at Villa Medici.
