Geta Brătescu

Geta Brătescu (born 4 May 1926, Ploiești) is a Romanian visual artist.

Her work includes drawing, collage, photography, performance, illustration and film.

In 2008 Geta Brătescu received the title of Doctor honoris causa from the National University of Arts Bucharest, awarded for her outstanding contribution to the development of contemporary Romanian art.[1] Brătescu is also artistic director of the magazine of literature and art Secolul 21.[2] A major retrospective of her work was held at the National Museum of Art of Romania in December 1999. In 2015 Brătescu's first UK solo exhibition will be held at Tate Liverpool.[3]

Studies

Geta Brătescu studied at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, between 1945 – 1949, under George Călinescu and Tudor Vianu, and at the Academy of Fine Arts under Camil Ressu. She was expelled from the latter before completing her degree due to communist censorship. In 1969 she was able to return to university, and studied at the Institute of Fine Arts "Nicolae Grigorescu", now Bucharest National University of Arts between 1969 – 1971.

Work

Following exclusion from her fine art course, Brătescu worked as an arts editor, illustrator and animator, and also carried out documentation trips both in Romania and abroad for the Artist's Union.[4] Once she returned to university, as a fine art student she had access to a studio which became the subject of a series of works throughout the 1970s that looked at the studio as a place to redefine the self. Other works from this period raise questions of self-identity and dematerialisation such as the performance and photography work Towards White.[5] In the 1980s Brătescu began working with textiles, describing this practice as 'drawing with a sewing machine'.[6]

Brătescu has been interested in numerous literary figures, including Aesop, Faust and Medea. The latter, a somewhat anti-feminine figure who killed her children, was the subject of a series of textile works made using scraps of cloth given to Brătescu by her mother, reflecting Brătescu's complex relationship with feminism.[7] Throughout Brătescu's works the line is a dominant feature, functioning as a mode of definition, measurement and movement, from the classical draughtsmanship of Hands 1974–76 to the body performing in space in The Studio 1978. Creating lines through material has continued within Brătescu's practice to present day within the series of collages Jeu des Formes (Game of Forms) 2009 – ongoing.[8]

Selected solo exhibitions

– Atelier Continuu, Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin, Germany
– Geta Brătescu and Paul Neagu, Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin, Germany
– Geta Brătescu, Intense Proximity, La Triennale Paris 2012, Palais de Tokyo and other venues, Paris, France
– Capricio, Galerie Rüdiger Schoettle, Munich, Germany
– Atelier III – Towards White, Galateea Gallery, Bucharest, Romania

Writings by Geta Brătescu

Selected Illustrations

Notes

  1. ↑ Geta Bratescu – Doctor Honoris Causa al Universitatii Nationale de Arte din Bucuresti, Educatie / Cultura, UNAgaleria "Geta Bratescu Doctor Honoris Causa" Check |url= value (help). Comunicated Press. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  2. ↑ "Secolul 20/21". Secolul 21. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  3. ↑ "Geta Brătescu". Tate Liverpool. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  4. ↑ Şerban, Geta Brătescu. Ed. de Alina (2013). Atelierul = The studio. Berlin: Sternberg Press. p. 322. ISBN 978-3-956790-16-4.
  5. ↑ "Towards White". Wikiart.org. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  6. ↑ "Medea's Hypostases II". MoMA Collection. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  7. ↑ Oprea, Adriana. "Interview with Geta Brătescu". Art Margins Online. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  8. ↑ Şerban, Geta Brătescu. Ed. de Alina (2013). Atelierul = The studio. Berlin: Sternberg Press. pp. 80, 140. ISBN 978-3-956790-16-4.

Bibliography

External links

Interviews

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