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https://www.418gallery.com
418 Contemporary Art Gallery was created in March 2008 by Dr. Joana Grevers, a Romanian-German art historian living and working between Munich, Bucharest & Cetate, Romania and Guy K. Williamson, an American entrepreneur and businessman. Our aim is to promote and to connect young, emerging artists from Romania to the international art scene and to represent already established key figures of Romanian-born artists, who had already been recognized on the international art scene and market.
Our first six years of existence were dedicated to the extensive promotion of young emerging artists, such as Cristian Răduță (a Bucharest-based sculptor), Anca Bodea (a painter from the School of Cluj) and Ștefan Radu Crețu (a Sibiu-based sculptor and installation artist), through solo-shows in the gallery space, external collaborations with other art institutions in Romania and abroad, catalogues and their yearly presence in the summer workshops from Druga Mansion in Cetate, South-Western Romania (www.cetateartsdanube.com). In the same time, we focused on the promotion and the increasing visibility of the already established artists, such as Romul Nutiu (1932-2012), the representative of Abstract Expressionism in Romania from the early sixties, whom we have promoted since our beginnings. Lately, we started a fresh and rewarding collaboration with the Romanian-born artist Sorel Etrog (1933, Jassy - 2014, Toronto), the Romanian-born German artist Diet Sayler (1939, Timisoara) and with Vincentiu Grigorescu (1923-2012), a Romanian-born abstract artist, living in Italy since the early 70s.
Our inclination towards abstraction and works in an expanded field is intertwined with the more classical, but still intriguing approaches of the figurative. Nonetheless, all our activities intent to create a solid and reliable profile of a Bucharest-based contemporary art gallery, in a fresh and emerging art market from South-Eastern Europe.
Structure & Energy II. The Power of Abstraction
19:00 - 04:00artists: Vincențiu Grigorescu, Romul Nuțiu, Diet Sayler
The exhibition continues the framework initiated last year, on the occasion of the exhibition Structure & Energy. The Need for Abstraction, curated by Liviana Dan & Joana Grevers.
Liviana Dan describes the similarites of the three artists, so different in fact, over their entire career - "Casual geometry, memory yes / nostalgia no, conclusive colors, the process of diminution, the vibration of calculated light – this is what forms the constant background in Vincenţiu Grigorescu, Romul Nuţiu and Diet Sayler’s artistic formation.The demarche will be approached differently, with a strong effect on the artistic material, under the shape of emotional content in Vincenţiu Grigorescu, rationality in Diet Sayler and subjectivity which means freedom in Romul Nuţiu."
The synchronicity with international art happened naturally, due to the fact that these personalities assimilated the tendencies of their time and used them broadly in their approaches, a matter that can be easily observed over decades. Romul Nutiu is considered the main representative of Abstract Expressionism behind the Iron Curtain, in Romania, and his unceasingly thirst to explore the Informal started in the early 60s, both in Painting and Assemblage. Differently from the other two artists, Nutiu didn't leave Romania, and he became one of Timisoara's most respected professors. The work of this recently passed away artist is in the custody of 418 Contemporary Art Gallery, an institution that has organized his most important public shows since 2008 and is still promoting his oeuvre through exhibitions and publications. On the other hand, Vincentiu Grigorescu and Diet Sayler emigrated from Romania in the early 70s, the first in Italy, the second in Germany, in the main period of Fluxus.