PLAY DICE WOULD BE NICE

The universe of Mihut Boscu [b. 1986, RO] can be easily regarded as a symbol of the decaying contemporary aesthetics, recalling references to the history of humanity, to literature, philosophy, science and global politics. Rooted in post-utopian/ kakotopian/ dystopian theories, his practice is imbued with subtle irony and conceptual crypticness, stimulating a    multicultural and interdisciplinary approach to the artwork. Among recent shows: La Triennale - “Intense Proximity” (Palais de Tokyo, Paris), “European Travellers - Art from Cluj Today” (Műcsarnok kunsthalle, Budapest).

Objects are notes, somehow this could be a good way to introduce Stefano Calligaro's [b. 1976, IT] practice. But there's something more, something hidden to our perception that goes beyond the process of making, beyond the object and the space. Notes are soft, they occupy silently the surface of a page, one next to the other. No matter what they say, they were written to be read as they are, nothing more and nothing less than that. The surface of the page keeps them together, bits and pieces of a more complex text. Objects are suggestions, but they have clear shapes and their own place in the world. They are subtle, not minimal, yet simple, not small, not big, but human scale. They belong to a moment meant to be filled by our thoughts, and at the same time they belong to our space, filling it as notes on a musical score. And here we are again, page, notes and in between a blank space. Calligaro's work could be about suggesting us to stop for a moment and look at all these elements as if they were all telling something. It's about floating ideas and traces almost hidden to our view.

Aline Cautis [b. 1975, US] employs an intuitive language of gesture, mark-making and abstract forms to create paintings and works on paper that are at once fluidly psychedelic and tightly controlled. By constantly rearranging the form and content of her artworks both in the studio and in the gallery, she develops new ways of seeing through the act of layering as a compositional strategy. Recent exhibitions include Centre for Contemporay Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Prague Biennial 5, Mayerei gallery in Berlin, Devening Projects + Editions, Roots & Culture and Julius Cæsar in Chicago.

Radu Comsa’s [b. 1975, RO] latest works deal with the dissolution of form, and with abstraction seen as an amalgamation of parts and leftovers, playing on the idea of the art object concretely existing as a 'shape of painting'. The abstractions originate in Comsa's metaphysical desire to digest his surroundings, while his complex 'scenographies for painting' subtly relate-transfer the obscure to the objective, the irregular to the symmetrical, the empirical to the theoretical. The artist appeares in group shows at Műcsarnok kunsthalle in Budapest, Peles Empire in London, Plan B in Cluj and Lucie Fontaine in Milan. He participated in Prague Biennale 3 and 4.

Describing herself as an "art employer," Lucie Fontaine [b. 1982, FR] avoids harnessing her practice to a specific figure of the art field, preferring a modus operandi driven solely by her relationship with two* employees, a concept of self-generated labor similar to the Master-Slave dialectic presented by Hegel is his Phenomenology of Spirit. Lucie Fontaine incarnates the following assumptions: 1) the anti-hierarchical perception of the art field, where artists, curators, gallerists, collectors, editors and critics are all considered "players" in the same game; 2) the theory of expanded practice, in which the artist is not only considered the "creator" of an artwork, but also a cultural operator able to write, manage galleries, curate, collect, etc.; 3) the consideration of the entire discourse around the artwork: conception / creation / production / presentation / distribution / communication / promotion. In 2007, Lucie Fontaine opened a space in Milan, intended as a meeting place for the artistic community. In 2008, T293 gallery in Naples hosted Lucie Fontaine's first solo show. In 2009, she exhibited in Murcia, Spain (with Fruit and Flower Deli) and at "No Soul For Sale" (X-initiative, New York). During Performa09 in New York, she produced the last iteration of Performat, her ongoing collaboration with the Italian artist and filmmaker Marcella Vanzo. In 2010, she participated in the second edition of "No Soul For Sale" at Tate Modern in London, and she had solo shows at The Front Desk Apparatus in New York, and at The Promenade Gallery in Vlöre. Recent shows include "Estate", Marianne Boesky, New York; "Claire Fontaine & Lucie Fontaine", The Green Gallery, Milwaukee; "Body of Work", IASPIS, Stockholm.

Florin Maxa's [b. 1943, RO] stages of creative work, tightly correlated in the 70s, can articulate with the same significance an intransigent "discourse on method". Between 1969-1974, the subject-matter object (the dichotomies formal-informal; structure-matter) becomes a question of the concept (displaying modular structures by means of illusionism; constructivist kinetics) and, later, an even more complex question of anamorphosis (applied graphics on computer). The computer becomes the accurate, impersonal instrument of a new "alchemy" of the image, performed "cold". (excerpt from Livia Drăgoi's interview with Florin Maxa; Steaua magazine no. 6, 1975)

Alex Mirutziu [b. 1981, RO] is an artist whose work cuts across multiple domains, including conceptual writing, performance, photography, video and installation. His main attempt is to reconfigure the relation between information and form & psychophysical language and content, while his work traverses processes that refer to the body when it is at war with itself and addresses issues of self-familiarisation, mediation, and interaction. His recent exhibitions include IASPIS in Stockholm, The Power Plant in Toronto, the National Museum in Warsaw, Rüdiger Schöttle gallery in Munich.