The Bacchanal 1993

Editor: Here we have Romul Nutiu's "The Bacchanal" from 1993, using acrylic and mixed media, so the impasto texture really comes forward. It strikes me as… chaotic, almost violent. What’s your take? Curator: The chaos you perceive reflects a critical period in post-communist Romania. Nutiu, like many artists of his generation, navigated the abrupt shift from state-controlled art to a free market. “The Bacchanal,” in this light, reads as a reaction against imposed artistic norms, a violent break from the past, wouldn’t you agree? How might its title – suggestive of revelry and excess – amplify that reading? Editor: It suggests the release of pent-up energy, almost like the societal constraints are off, and anything is possible…or permissible. I'm thinking of similar works coming out of Germany post-reunification. Curator: Precisely. Nutiu's work isn't created in a vacuum. The influences of Abstract Expressionism and even Fauvism are apparent, placing it within a larger historical dialogue about freedom of expression and challenging aesthetic boundaries. Museums then become contested spaces for exhibiting this newly liberated, often unsettling, artistic output. Do you think exhibiting works such as these, serves to disrupt, preserve or create cultural memory? Editor: I think it's all of the above! Showing works like this both preserves a specific historical moment of upheaval and forces us to grapple with uncomfortable truths about the past. It definitely feels disruptive. Curator: It’s that very disruption that helps us understand art's public role, its engagement with socio-political forces. And hopefully enriches our understanding. Editor: Definitely. I see so much more complexity in it now, knowing something of its cultural context.