From 21 to 27 October 2022, the apARTe Gallery of the Faculty of Visual Arts and Design at the George Enescu National University of Arts, Iași (UNAGE Iași), hosted Projection, an exhibition of works by Matei Bejenaru, curated by Cristian Nae and supported by the Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Art (ICMA).

“Projection presents the results of the latest stage of a long-term research project focusing on the photographic medium, initiated by Matei Bejenaru in 2018 and previously developed through the exhibitions Diapozitiv (Slide) (Switchlab, Bucharest, 2020) and Print (Artep, Iași, 2021). As in the previous exhibitions, the artist’s attention focuses primarily on the mode of representation and less on the subject represented. At the same time, the exhibition explores photographic language, as well as ways of viewing and reading the photographic image as determined by the photographic apparatus. This time, however, it evokes the cultural history of projection as an optical device, associated with the advances of physics in early modern Europe, as well as with the Enlightenment as a cultural period dominated by the ideal of scientific rationality — characteristics that the artist considers to be under threat in contemporary society, fascinated by mysticism and the irrational.

For this exhibition, Matei Bejenaru constructed a multilayered and twofold apparatus of aesthetic reception, in which photomontage is achieved through the masking and superimposition of the projected light of slides. The postmodern quotation is accompanied by a series of examples of photographic genres in which projection often becomes not only the vehicle of representation but also its subject. The artist’s studio — another important topos of the exhibition — metaphorically becomes the locus of experimentation and introspection, the point of convergence of the photographed subjects, and a document of a recent period in his artistic practice. Indirectly, the series of slides devoted to the photographic studio thus becomes a subtle and sober self-portrait of the mature artist.”

(Cristian Nae)

Matei Bejenaru (born 1963) is an artist and the founder of the Periferic Biennial in Iași, Romania. Established in 1997 as a performance festival, Periferic developed into an international artist-run contemporary art biennial, conceived as a platform for discussions on the historical, socio-political, and cultural contexts of the city. Together with a group of artists and philosophers from Iași, Bejenaru founded the Vector Association in 2001, a contemporary art institution that supported the local emerging art scene and helped it gain visibility both locally and internationally. In 2015, together with a group of artists and professors, he founded the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Iași.

From 2011 to 2012, he was a Visiting Professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada. In his recent artistic projects, he has been researching the materiality of the photographic medium and the politics of representation in documentary formats. Working with analogue technologies, he focuses on the photographic process as a witness to the crisis of singularity and artistic commitment.

He teaches photography and video at the George Enescu National University of Arts, Iași (UNAGE Iași).

Matei Bejenaru collaborates with Anca Poterașu Gallery in Bucharest.

https://mateibejenaru.net