„A hundred years of loneliness”, with Valentina Rusu Ciobanu. „The Genius of Bessarabia”, on the centenary

These days, two events are prepared that I believe will change the perspective on post-war Romanian painting, constituting a revelation for art lovers. The most important representative of the School in Chisinau, the painter Valentina Rusu Ciobanu, born on October 28, 1920, turns 100, at the occasion two exhibitions will be organized in Bucharest, under the title „Valentina Rusu Ciobanu - one hundred years since birth”. These days, two events are prepared that I believe will change the perspective on post-war Romanian painting, constituting a revelation for art lovers. The most important representative of the School in Chisinau, the painter Valentina Rusu Ciobanu, born on October 28, 1920, turns 100, on the occasion two exhibitions will be organized in Bucharest, under the title „Valentina Rusu Ciobanu - one hundred years since birth”.

The painter Valentina Rusu Ciobanu Although she has not painted for about 25 years, Valentina Rusu Ciobanu lives in Chisinau and has closely collaborated in organizing exhibitions, identifying works and sending them to curators Anastasia Gurschi and Victoria Nagy Vajda in the footsteps of others (an important portrait by the artist of Chisinau), was discovered in Tighina, now Bender, in the Transnistrian-controlled area). On June 30, 2020, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis signed the decree decorating the important painter, essential name of the Romanian School of Painting in Chisinau, with the Order „Cultural Merit”, in the rank of Grand Officer, at the proposal of former Prime Minister Maia Sandu , all the events of this cultural project are organized in Bucharest under the patronage of Mrs. Maia Sandu), a proposal supported by the Association for culture and art ARBOR (president: Victoria Nagy Vajda) and by the Museum of Bucharest. On Wednesday, October 28, 2020, the very day she turns 100, Valentina Rusu Ciobanu will be celebrated in Bucharest, through the opening of the exhibition „Valentina Rusu Ciobanu - A century of loneliness” (visit period: October 28 - November 29), which will take place in the exhibition space Arbor.art.room (str. Transilvaniei, no. 11, sector 1, landmark: Luigi Cazzavillan Park), belonging to the association led by Victoria Nagy Vajda. On November 5, the "big” exhibition will open at the Suţu Palace - Bucharest Museum (visit period: November 5-29), curated by Elena Olariu, coordinator of the Museum, and Anastasia Gurschi, project coordinator in Chisinau from the Arbor team. It is a gesture of late repair, due to the efforts made by the ARBOR Association during the last year, because the artist has exhibited in the Capital only in two insignificant group exhibitions, from the 70s and 2009, respectively. In both exhibitions ( which enjoys co-financing from AFCN, Bucharest City Hall, through the Cultural Center Expo Arte, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Chisinau), will be presented works from the artist's workshop, which have never been exhibited , therefore not heritage works, which are in museums throughout the Republic of Moldova. The „icon” from across the Prut, the „unknown genius” in Bucharest Valentina Rusu Ciobanu (VRC) is considered the „genius of Bessarabian painting", an „icon” („icon”, we would say) of Bessarabia and the most important representative of the Romanian School of painting from Chisinau, in any case the greatest plastic artist of Romania across the Prut. However, here his name is almost unknown, perhaps only in the small circle of specialists and art historians. The fact that the artist has never been exhibited in Bucharest as it should be until now, but also – let's face it – that, in general, the culture across the Prut is not known to Romanians from abroad, contributed to this. For example, not even the name of the great prose writer Ion Druta, the most important writer of the 50 years of communism in Bessarabia, his masterpiece „The burden of our goodness” can stand next to, or even over, any other Romanian „rural novel”, and I he always thinks of Paradjanov's „Shadows of the Forgotten Ancestors”), he doesn't say much to the Romanians in Bucharest. It is a huge cultural fault (at least for the communist period, because, indeed, after 1990, artists from across the Prut, from all walks of life, brought a new, sometimes even radical, „revolutionary” breath to the country's culture). the unfortunate historical situation, which the ARBOR Association set out to remedy. Let's hope that, at least as far as the VRC, the „genius of Bessarabian painting” is concerned, after October 28 and November 5, this situation will change. The century of VRC Valentina Rusu Ciobanu had a life as troubled as the twentieth century she went through („20th Century, / Don't spend more”), and as the bloody and martyred territory between the Prut and the Dniester, which inhabited. In the 1940s, during the world war (Bessarabia had been recovered, for a short time, by Romanian troops), a young woman of 20 and some years old, studied Fine Arts at the Academy of Iasi, having as a teacher the future great painter Corneliu Baba, at that time the assistant of the elder Jean L. Cosmovici. These were the years of professional training of the future great artist. However, the end of the war and the defeat of Romania will make Valentina Rusu Ciobanu return to Chisinau. We can speculate what would have happened if VRC had managed to stay in Romania, which would have been his artistic trajectory and subsequent career (to me personally, the artist seems much more than a Margareta Sterian or „brilliant” but unproductive Magdalena Rădulescu – the two „lovers” from (at) Balchik). What is certain is that, at that time, the Romanians across the Prut were „hunted” by the Soviets to be sent back to Bessarabia, and Valentina's family and parents were across the Prut. (The artist's older brother, Victor Rusu Ciobanu, born in Tbilisi – where the parents of the two met, the father being Romanian from Chisinau and the Lithuanian mother –, forged his birthplace in the bulletin as Tulcea, to remains in Romania, where he became a second-rate painter, but quite well known. „Waves of History”, of which we spoke...) Macondo from across the Prut Once back in Bessarabia, renamed by the Soviet MSSR, Valentina Rusu Ciobanu will have to to go through all the phases of the plastic art imposed by the Soviet regime, from the pure and harsh „socialist realism” of the Stalin era to the subsequent liberalizations or „reideologizations”. What seems important to me is that, in all these stages, from the „proletkult” to the Western-inspired hyperrealism / photorealism with which the artist was associated at one point, VRC produces extremely powerful, original works with a intense personal imprint. Regardless of the requirements of the „cultists” from Moscow and Chisinau, the artist managed to avoid or exceed them, bringing her extremely original note (for this reason, she had frequent conflicts with cultural activists of the time, being accused of „formalism”, „impressionist touches” or other ideological blame of the time). Right photo: The VRC photo, from the transcript from the Iaşi Academy of Fine Arts The works of Valentina Rusu Ciobanu, regardless of the ideological context, rather compose an imaginary and picturesque Moldova / Bessarabia (at one time, but only at a time – because the artist has gone through many, unlike the single string Margareta Sterian –, similar to the „naive art” of „rural” painters in our country, but only similar), over which „floats” the Spirit that was here ) in the beginning. It is the intuition that made Victoria Nagy Vajda see everything as a giant Marquezian Macondo, but we will return to this aspect. Like Ion Grigorescu, a hyper-modernist who became a member of the post-’90s Prolog Group, after this historical milestone, the artist tries his hand at religious illustration. But then, suddenly, after the age of 75, there is silence. All these things, well documented by the organizers during the last year, will be presented in detail in a film (slide-show) that will run in the two rooms, in a mini-exhibition of „historical” photos at Arbor.art .room, as well as in a generous catalog edited on this occasion (editors: Elena Olariu and Victoria Nagy Vajda). Victoria Nagy Vajda, however, had the „madness” to push Macondo's suggestion and the parallel with Márquez's novel even further, finding fortuitous, unintentional equivalences between the works in the artist's studio, which will be virtually recreated in „virtual reality" on Theopen-art.com, which „hosts” such VR exhibitions, organized by the ARBOR Association – is the first Romanian artist to have reconstructed his studio in VR, while major museums have long recreated the workshops of great artists) and sequences from the masterpiece márqueziană. The result is a fascinating „comic strip”, a „film” consisting of paintings and drawings, which will surely be enjoyed by the people of Bucharest who will cross, for a month, the threshold of Arbor.art.room in Transylvania 11. Valentina Rusu Ciobanu – „the loneliness of the long-distance artist” „A century of loneliness”, was inspired to name the exhibition curator Victoria Nagy Vajda – „annex" Valentina Rusu Ciobanu from the exhibition space Arbor.art.room (containing, as well as the exhibition „sea” from the Suţu Palace, works from the artist's studio - a selection from all periods of Valentine's creation – some of which have never been exhibited publicly). What is with this „loneliness”, what does Victoria's „find” still refer to? Right photo: Self-portrait VRC, made in the technique of photorealism The 100 years seem to be those of Valentina Rusu Ciobanu, who turns them these days, on October 28, but, at the same time, things must be seen in a paradigm broader, in the broader context of the Republic of Moldova, the Romanian-speaking state east of the Prut. Of course, it is about the 100 years since the Great Union of 1918, when Bessarabia had the chance to reintegrate into the Romanian cultural and political space, and about this „loneliness” concerning Romania (more or less Great ), of the land between the Prut and the Dniester. We could even say „over 200 years” (since the territorial abduction of 1812), but we must still focus on the last century, the short years since 1918: one, because tsarism is not identical with Bolshevism (the from which the Romanians across the Prut have suffered in the last century), two, because, even in the interwar period, between 1919 and 1940, when Bessarabia was part of the Kingdom of Romania, things were not very happy, the Romanian administration leaving the locals a bitter taste (I will not go into details now). In other words, the great chance - for almost all Romanians to live on the same state territory - has been missed in the last century (let alone the embarrassing Romanian „reaction” since 1991). A (long) self-imposed „silence”. Let's not forget that Valentina Rusu Ciobanu, „the genius of Bessarabian painting”, as it is called more and more often by those across the Prut (because in Romania it is not almost unknown, but completely unknown, but we hope that this will change with the two exhibitions organized by ARBOR at the centenary), it ceased to paint somewhere in the first half of the '90s, inexplicably. It is a mystery why the artist gave up her grace and craft, when, as they say, she was in full creative force. The argument of old age does not hold, because there are so many other artists in any field (including cinema, which used to be harder, but is now relatively easy), who „served” their art and expressed their creativity until the last moment, „at the last breath” (and our Luchian, about the „great sick”, painted „to the end” with the brush tied to his fingers). Valentina Rusu Ciobanu collaborated closely, in 2020, with the organizers of the exhibition for the selection and identification of works, so she is in perfect shape at the 100th anniversary she is now celebrating. This self-imposed „silence” of the artist will remain a great mystery („under the seal of mystery”), through which Valentina Rusu Ciobanu joins some great „mutes” (in a creative sense) of history, from the painter Andrei Rubliov to the prose writer J.D. Salinger. This is after the great painter, after returning to Bessarabia from artistic studies made in the Kingdom of Romania in the 1940s, will go through all the stages of evolution, of „change” of Soviet and, implicitly, Moldavian painting, from the east of the Prut, in all giving major works of reference. But in the alternative, permanently, this „loneliness” of the great artist and of Bessarabia as a whole, which will eventually make her, when no one expected, proceed to this „pact of silence”. Macondo, Schabbach, Yelan (Siberia), Bessarabia. A Romanian / Bessarabian Macondo is what seems to suggest the works of the painter chosen by Victoria Nagy Vajda for the „annex” from Arbor.art.room, which, put together and together, give an account of a universe specific to the Bessarabian artist. Macondo is the Colombian village made famous by G.G. Márquez, imaginary but with strong roots in the childhood of the author born in Aracataca and in his native places near the Caribbean Cartagena. Macondo and Márquez always made me think of the TV series-masterpiece by the German Edgar Reitz entitled „Heimat" (first series, 1984), or vice versa. Like there, here we have a fictional German village, Schabbach, but with strong elements in the reality of the twentieth century, pursued during (at least) „three generations”. Right photo: Valentina Rusu Ciobanu, Glebus Sainciuc and their son, Lică Sainciuc At one point, after a review with the film megaopus „Siberiada” by the Russian Koncealovski (about the same historical period treated) - 4 and a half hours of screening - I did a parallel between „Heimat" and him, it is true insisting more on the differences. If „Heimat” is, in a way, the (still) unrealized screening of the Marquezian „Century of Solitude”, it can be said that the works of the Bessarabian painter in the Arbor exhibition are the pictorial illustration (of course, involuntary) of this novel, now transposed. of curators in the form of a fascinating „comic” ad-hoc. It is the same universe as the one discovered with astonishment and delight, two years ago, in the epoch-making photography exhibition "So Spoke Zaharia” (about the so-called „naive” photographer Zaharia Cuşnir, to whose organization the ARBOR Association contributed, developed in the exhibition hall of the Museum of the Romanian Peasant) - „Et in Bessarabia ego" I called my text at that time, because I had the impression of a „memory” sunk and not remembered until then (maybe a „false”), a strong sense of „Déjà vu”, of an „anamnesis” made by this exhibition. Likewise now, if you look closely at the „poetic realism” in the works of Valentina Rusu Ciobanu brought to Romania by the Arbor association, you will realize what this „loneliness” is, both of the artist and the land between the Prut and (over). Dniester, a still unhealed „wound” of History. Valentina Rusu Ciobanu and the 100 years of loneliness. The sourse on information inonline publication adevarul.ro.