Șantier. Continuous Studio 10

22.04-01.08 /SAC @ MALMAISON

 

A solo show by Dumitru Gorzo
Curated by Alex Radu
Exhibition and graphic design by Ioana Naniș, Cristi Matei & Justin Baroncea

 

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​“Șantier”(construction site) is Dumitru Gorzo’s fourth exhibition at /SAC and the sixth collaboration we have developed together over the past decade. Although I have always felt more naturally inclined toward curating group exhibitions rather than solo shows, I find myself entirely at ease doing so for an artist whose practice I have followed so closely. This long-term collaboration has also offered me a privileged perspective on how, in Gorzo’s work, the notion of the “construction site” becomes a metaphor for a practice in a constant state of experimentation, and how he often transforms the exhibition space—imbued with the rigor/structure and force/disruption of an actual site—into a living studio, as seen in the Continuous Studio series.

 

 

What defines Dumitru Gorzo’s current practice is both the (re-)drawing and reactivation of forms—intangible yet vibrant, contorted, charged with tension and visceral, embodied energy—akin to a kind of “de-abstracted abstract expressionism” (Justin Baroncea), as well as the performative dimension of making and the artist’s sustained curiosity and sense of wonder toward materiality, which becomes a co-subject. “Construction Site” presents new works created specifically for this exhibition, introducing technical developments that stem directly from the artist’s ongoing engagement with material as subject. The perception of these works oscillates like a dance between the narrative of (re-)figured anthropomorphic forms and the expressive, narrative potential of multiple coexisting pictorial planes, generating new depths on a single surface.

 

 

A new moment of intensity in Gorzo’s ongoing relationship with labor and creation, the exhibition “Construction Site” at /SAC @ Malmaison emerges as an immersive, provisional, collaborative structure—a charged, ephemeral station centered around a laboratory phase (of “gorzolănii”).

 

— Alex Radu

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Dumitru Gorzo (b. 1975, Ieud, Maramureș) is one of the most influential contemporary Romanian artists, having held landmark solo exhibitions at MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art) in 2006 and at MARe (Museum of Recent Art) in 2025.