"Painting for me is a daily routine that enables me to avoid falling into boredom and inactivity. I need to 'do' things every day," Victor Man
Victor Man was born in 1974 in Cluj in Romania, where he still lives and works. This exhibition presents works from the last two years, including paintings, sculptures, wall drawings. The dark and irreducible melancholy that impregnates the body of his work has found in Vassivière island a naturally mimetic place where the artist is able to confront the force of spaces both natural and architectural (designed by Aldo Rossi).
In terms of narrative construction, Victor Man's work can be compared to incomplete phrases which fail to state anything conclusive, so they create a sort of disorientation.
Man's work is often autobiographical, such as the small-dimensioned assemblages of pictorial work, wall drawings and sculptures that bring together various references to his birthplace. Parallel to this, the artist examines the historical changes in this new European geography by analyzing questions and objects that allude to local traditions turned obsolete. Transylvania, the region of Romania where Man is from, has strong historical links with Hungary, where the artist's maternal ancestors hail from; both places remained under Turkish domination for almost two centuries.
Victor Man is considered to be one of the great interpreters of human gestures, which with strong photographic precision and immense talent he grasps in the way he fixes the immediacy of the instant. In his poetic credo, the questions of political and national identity overlay a reflection on violence and man's condition of solitude.
The objects and images used by Victor Man hark back to a more or less recent past and focus precisely on the actions of passing time. Certain objects out of context suggest new stories. By voiding the images of their initial contents and extirpating their original meaning, Victor Man allows for possible new readings. Only a part of the original remains intact: stealing their soul is the last action that the artist performs before he reintroduces them in a new context.
"I avoid giving a definitive status, I love the idea of penetrating things softly and keeping my distance. If things become too explicit, then I include another element to upset coherence."
Victor Man
Until 7 June
Centre international d'art et du paysage - Vassivière island
Ile de Vassivière F - 87120
T+33 5 55 69 27 27
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