BIOGRAPHY Gabriel Marian

Gabriel Marian is a visual artist, curator and one of the founders of the Nano Gallery at the Center of Interest, Cluj. He graduated in 2011 with a Master’s degree in painting from UAD, and in 2022 with a PhD in visual arts from the same university. He has exhibited in Berlin (2021, with other artists from Cluj), Strasbourg (2019 - solo show), Turin and Paris (2015/2013- group exhibitions) and in other galleries in Romania. His work appears, among other artists, in the Benetton collection of contemporary art: ‘Imago Mundi: Romanian artists’ (2014) and in the album published the same year in Treviso. He has participated in a series of graphic projects in collaboration with the German Centre Cluj and Comics Club Cluj. He is also the author of a series of articles on criticism and art history published in Dilema Veche and Echinox (2001-2005). His artworks are in private collections in France and the United States.

In terms of his personal artistic approach, he is concerned with the frontier between abstraction and figuration, which he explores from an ironic perspective on art history. In his recent works, he uses complex superimpositions of lines, signs and shapes to recreate vaguely familiar images and structures, often using fragments of texts from universal, classical or contemporary literature. His current artistic projects focus on the representation of the human physiognomy in a post-colonial perspective, both as a deconstruction of the territorialization (Deleuze) imposed by European art history and as a rediscovery of the features of the portrait as a landscape traversed by the seemingly random trajectories of graphic lines and signs - recomposing the figurative image. Other projects have tackled the limits of representation such as myopia, microscopic perception or calligraphy and graffiti.

Solo Exhibitions

2021 - A list of forgotten names, duo show, InteriorDAsein Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2020 - Neural Bonds, duo show, Art Museum, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2019 - Le désir du texte, Association Parlementaire Européenne, Strasbourg, France

2019 - Fake Is the New Real, Nano Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2018 - La Trahison des images, Institutul Francez, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2018 - Late summer show, Nano Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2018 - Traces in the dust, IAGA Contemporary Art, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2016 - Jacob’s Wrestle/Lupta lui Iacov, Atelier 4 Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2016 - Primal Dream, Fabrica de pensule (The Paintubrush Factory), Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2015 - Baroque Calligraphies, Diverta Hubertus, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2014 - The Fly on the Strawberry (featuring Gizella Kovats), Nano Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2013 - Myopia, Librăria Diverta, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2012 - Ego, Nano Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2010 - Self landscapes, Casa Artelor, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2009 - Low-cost icons, Polul Cultural Cluj, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2003 - Politics of beauty, Harriet Woolley Gallery, Paris, France

Group Exhibitions

2022 - Salonul anual de artă 2022, Art Museum, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2021 - Memoria tăinuită a locului (The secret memory of the place), Art Museum, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2021 - Atrium, Center of interest, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2020 - Art Market Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

2020 - Il faut cultiver notre jardin, Center of Interest, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2018 - Art Thessaloniki, International Contemporary Art Fair, Thessaloniki, Greece

2017 - Micro Flora & Fauna, duo show with Ovidiu Stan, Nano Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2015 - Hello Natasha 2, Espace Wild Awake, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2015 - Art Safari Fair, Bucharest, Romania

2015 - Mostra collettiva d’arte contemporanea, Palazzo Birago di Vische, Torino, Italy

2014 - Romanian Contemporary Art, Benetton collection, Milano, Italy

2014 - Hello Natasha, Café Papillon, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2014 – ComiXconnection, Art Museum, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2013 - Give me the future 2, Fabrica de pensule (Paintbrush Factory) & Hotel Granata, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2013 - V.I.C. (Very Important Chair), Atelier Z Gallery, Paris, France

2013 - Cluj seen by artists, Students Culture House, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2012 - Give me the future, Fabrica de Pensule (Paintbrush Factory) & Hotel Granata, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2010 - Students Studio, UAP art gallery, Baia Mare, Romania

2009 - Salonul Internaţional de Pictură (SIP), Florean Museum, Baia Mare, Romania

2008 - Culorile Echinoxului, Art Museum, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

2004 - Salon des Dépendants, Fondation des Etats-Unis, Paris, France

Pubblications

- Traces in the dust, catalogue of the solo exhibition at IAGA Contemporary Art, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 2018

- David Hockney, in Echinox. Texte teoretice, Editors Horea Poenar, Rares Moldovan, Editura LIMES, Cluj, 2018, p. 317-324

- Scurtă istorie a celei de-a 9-a arte. Partea I: Europa, in Echinox magazine, Cluj, february 2016

- Conjugări digitale - Antoine Compagnon la Cluj, in România literară, București, 2016

- J-L Wauthier - Rembrandt era orb?, in Escales littéraires à Cluj, Editor: Rodica Lascu-Pop, Casa Cărții de știință, Cluj, 2015

- Proza lui Marcel Mariën, in Echinox, Cluj, 2014

- Ombres écrites, perspectives en papier: Hebdomeros de G. de Chirico, in L’Art en toutes lettres. Écrits d’artistes francophones et roumains, Casa Cărţii de Stiinţă, Cluj, 2013

- La critique littéraire et les arts: méthodes et métaphores, in Traductions sans frontieres, Éditura Limes, Cluj, 2012

- La terminologie technique et scientifique entre métaphorisation et traduction: le cas des doublets en roumain, in Revue Internationale d’Etudes en Langues Modernes

-Appliquées, Risoprint, Cluj-Napoca, 2009

- Pictura şi inflaţia vizualului, in Echinox, Cluj-Napoca, nr. 1-2, 2001, p. 16

- Omagiu funerar cu trei uverturi (in memoriam Balthus), in Echinox, Cluj, nr. 3-4, 2001, p. 20

- Lucian Freud. Neonul şi carnea, in Echinox, Cluj-Napoca, nr. 5-6, 2001, p. 20

- David Hockney, serial în şapte episoade, in Echinox, Cluj, nr. 10-11-12, 2001, p. 20

- Botero sau obrăznicia materiei, in Echinox, Cluj-Napoca, nr. 1-2-3, 2002, p. 20

- Cahier de traductions spécialisées (coordinator: Izabella Badiu), Risoprint, Cluj-Napoca, 2010

- La terminologie technique et scientifique entre métaphorisation et traduction: le cas des doublets en roumain, in Revue Internationale d’Etudes en Langues Modernes Appliquées, Risoprint, Cluj-Napoca, 2009

- Métaphores et fictions dans le discours de la Nouvelle Critique, in Variations, 10/2003, Peter Lang Verlag, Zurich, p. 29-46

- Mystique du corps: cinq poèmes d’Henri Bauchau, in Francofonia, 42/2002, Olschki Editore, Bologna, p. 27-36

- Metafora moale. Stiinţele umane si mutaţiile generice ale literaturii, in O anatomie a discursului filosofic, Editura Augusta, Timisoara, col. Eidos, 2002, p. 155-168

- Lilith et Shekhina. Archétypes littéraires de la féminité, in Etudes francophones. Variations sur la différence, coordinator Rodica Lascu-Pop, Napoca Star, 2000, p. 9-26

MENTIONS IN PUBLICATIONS, PAPERS, INTERVIEWS

- Arta magazine, #54-55 / 2022, Bucharest, Romania, p. 108

- Interview on TVR Cluj/TVR3 – Culture-Painting-Literature talk show, hosted by Horea Poenar, producer: Mihaiela Ilea – 7 December 2021, broadcast 9 January 2022, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

- Interview on Radio NOVA (France) – at the Clujotronic festival: 20 October 2020

- Cultura magazine, Bucharest, Romania, nr. 10 / 2020, p. 80

- My Art Guide – East Central Europe, Ed. Lightbox, Venice, Italy, 2016, p. 432

- Review in Christie’s - The abandoned paintbrush factory producing art’s new superstars, 2016, link: www.christies.com/features/Adrian-Ghenie-and-the-Cluj-paintbrush-factory-producing-art-superstars-7122-1.aspx

- Oraşul [The City], urban culture magazine, nr 16 (4/2009), Cluj-Napoca, Romania, p. 47

- Snapshot Romania. Contemporary Artists from Romania, Ed. Fabrica, Treviso, Italy, 2013, p. 191-192

- Interview online: http://maramuresenii.ro/gabriel-marian-artistul-clujean-cu-radacini-baimarene/

IAGA Contemporary Art

This catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition: The Map Is/Not The Territory

First edition 2023

©IAGA Contemporary Art Str. Cloşca, Nr. 9/11

Cluj–Napoca, Romania www.iagacontemporaryart.com info@iagacontemporaryart.com

From an idea by Alberto Perobelli

Media partners:

Under the patronage of:

Project manager Alberto Perobelli

Rosalba Di Pierro

Texts by Camilla Remondina

Gabriel Marian

Photo credits Ștefan Bădulescu

Graphic design Anna Azzollini

Member of:

Cover illustration: details of

Newton’s prism

Electric spring

The body as such

Native dream

Sketch #8

Peonies

Rage against the dying of the light

Spectral smile