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Şerban Savu: What Work Is | Romania Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2024
Șerban Savu’s project for the Romanian Pavilion and the New Gallery of the Romanian Cultural Institute consists of paintings and mosaics inspired by Socialist realism. Rather than contest or dismantle them, Savu rearranges the revolutionary tropes – of workers united by political aspirations and the choreographic rhythms of building the future – to capture the unadorned reality of a historical limbo, moments o... more >>
Șerban Savu’s project for the Romanian Pavilion and the New Gallery of the Romanian Cultural Institute consists of paintings and mosaics inspired by Socialist realism. Rather than contest or dismantle them, Savu rearranges the revolutionary tropes – of workers united by political aspirations and the choreographic rhythms of building the future – to capture the unadorned reality of a historical limbo, moments of suspension, perplexity and inertia as microcosms of ampler societal shifts or crises.
At the pavilion, a monumental polyptych-like installation brings together about 40 paintings in a multi-faceted study of a social scene increasingly emptied of shared meaning, where different ideologies erect their scenographies and emit their proclamations. An architectural installation presents scale models displaying mosaics which diverge from the metaphors and tonalities that the medium conveys in religious environments, or in the cosmogonies of labour that Socialist mosaic-making excels in. At the project’s other venue, one of these mosaics is realised at a monumental scale. In addition, the Brussels-based graphic design studio Atelier Brenda respond to Savu’s project via textual and visual works which think through the abstraction of labour as foundation for the definition of a capitalist self.
