Thursday, August 02, 2007

Cluj Napoca and Art. The Cluj School. Gallery Plan B.

Cluj Napoca.  Town in Transylvania.  And Art.
 The Cluj School. A 2013 update.

Post dates reflect the chronology of the earlier trip, not the dates of events referenced.

1.  Cluj now enjoys a significant focus on the world's art stage, see Traction in Transylvania, NYT Style Magazine 11.16.2013 at 82ff. Named artists include painter Adrian Ghenie, see Pace Gallery at http://www.pacegallery.com/artists/144/adrian-ghenie; Victor Man, see Gladstone Gallery at http://gladstonegallery.com/artist/victor-man/work#&panel1-1; Mircea Cantor, see Dvir Gallery at http://www.dvirgallery.com/artists/works_selected.asp?artistID=15&contentPageID=5 and Ciprian Muresan, see Nicodim Gallery at http://www.nicodimgallery.com/artists/ciprian-muresan/.

Those artists and others became known as the Cluj School, thanks to Giancarlo Politi in 2007. He was known largely for not only art criticism, but for founding Flash Art in Italy.  Cluj's gallery, founded by Mr. Ghenie and Mihai Pop in 2005: Plan B.  Video, Adrian Ghenie on Gallery Plan B, is at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dSFurfjewY

The name Mircea, as in the ruler, is in itself, an old, venerable name. Think Mircea the Old 1355-1418, or Mircea the Elder: father of Vlad II Dracul, thus grandfather to Vlad III Dracul, known to some as the Impaler.

2.  Cluj, or Cluj Napoca, is small, some 325,000 residents with permanent addresses there; and it far older than mere medieval.  Greek geographer Ptolemy 85-165 ACE) identified it. Cluj became a Roman municipality under Emperor Hadrian, and a colony under, was it Marcus Aurelius? See http://www.visitclujnapoca.ro/en/despre-cluj/istoria-cluj-ului/ 

 It was only in 1173, however, that Cluj Napoca was documented as a settlement, "Clus" as the word at that time, for "hills surrounding." Other names attached, depending on the Hungarian or German (Saxon) origins of then-dominant groups. Other protections and benefits stemmed from its diversity and the talent of its people; with a constant undercurrent: disaster for one group resulting in boon for another. For example, the indigeous population was decimated by Tatars, the area then settled by Saxons. See site.




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