Art Encounters 2017 Exhibitions:
Life a userʼs manual: Urban Insights

Dan Beudean (b. 1980), an alumnus of the University of Art and Design Cluj, graphics department, is known and appreciated primarily for his drawing work – often fantastical images stemming from an exacerbated perception of reality. Both his drawings and his installations include superimposed layers of mythology, history, mysticism and pop culture, coalescing into a strange anatomy of past and present society, as well as his private universe.

Selected exhibitions: BEING MOUNTAINS, BEING SEAS, Lateral ArtSpace, Cluj-Napoca (2017); Grădina imposibilă [The Impossible Garden], Jecza Gallery, Timișoara (2017, solo, with Alex Mirutziu); Neurosturgeon Stream, 8 Mihail Kogălniceanu street, Cluj-Napoca (2016); Dan Beudean. God Luck and Good Speed, Cluj-Napoca Art Museum (2016, solo); Magellan’s Cabin, Lateral ArtSpace, Cluj-Napoca (2014, solo); Apprehension. Understanding through Fear of Understanding, BB6 Bucharest Biennial, Bucharest (2014); Festival of the Supreme Being, STRABAG Artlounge, Wien (2013, solo); Let’s Talk about Cars, Zorzini Gallery, Bucharest (2013); Scènes Roumaines, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris (2013); Defining/Creating, LARM Gallery, Copenhagen (2013); What We Do Is Secret, Zorzini Gallery, Bucharest (2012, solo); Realm, Slag Gallery, New York (2010); Dan Beudean, Laika Gallery, Bucharest (2009, solo).

George Crîngașu (b. 1988) lives in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. His practice focuses on data de/recontextualization, with work ranging from installation and video to print and painting.

Selected exhibitions: Orange as the Grove, Salty as the Sea, Nicodim Gallery, Bucharest (2017, solo); Artefactual Persistence, SUPERLIQUIDATO, The Paintbrush Factory, Cluj-Napoca (2016, solo); Polished Honesty, CAV, Bucharest (2016); Digital Pop, Athens Digital Art Festival, Athens (2016); BOOKS London Edition, Arebyte Gallery, London (2016); You dreamt with straight lines, I did with curves, which had acid shadows, House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest (2015); ppm | copy-art show. pages per minute, Aici-Acolo Pop Up Gallery, Cluj-Napoca (2015); Appearance and Essence, Art Encounters Biennale, Timco Halls, Timișoara (2015); LISTE, Art Fair Basel, SABOT (2015); The Ocean and the Friendly Shore, SABOT, The Paintbrush Factory, Cluj-Napoca (2014, solo); Aberrations of Appropriations, Bosisio-SABOT, Residency Space, The Paintbrush Factory, Cluj-Napoca (2012, solo); ABRACADABRA, Ataș Project Space, Cluj-Napoca (2011, solo).

Dan Beudean is publicly known for his remarkable drawings that serve as the meeting point of oneiric visions and a strongly acidic diagnosis of reality. Lately, this universe expands to installation and sculpture, through a room constructed as a kind of office of curiosity, or through romantic forays in the nostalgia for ruin. George Crîngașu works in the area of digital collage and ambient installation, taking over the strategies from the information flow of the online environment to juxtapose images that create both tangible and immaterial realities. For this edition of the biennale, the two artists meet again after the Neurosturgeon Stream exhibition in 2016, when they collaborated to transform the space of a house in a fantastic and bizarre place, adeptly absorbing works of art. Using the same strategy, they both colonize a phased-out tram car to reflect on some of the distinctive features of this mode of transportation: from the history of the tram, to its relevance today; from the social habits it creates, to the specific rules of ad-hoc communities formed during a journey.

Images:

1. Dan Beudean, Untitled (2016), Site-specific intervention view from the exhibition Neurosturgeon Stream, photo credits: Cristian Wunderlich Mihai