Through his works, Claudiu Ciobanu investigates the nature of the relationship between reason, identity, and the human condition. His research starts with the study of the human capacity to perceive and analyze the physical body, an endeavor possible both from the perspective of one’s own body and through the perception of other human bodies. However, this perception is not manifested so much through the body itself but through the mind’s ability to coordinate it. The key point from which the artist begins is a concept deeply explored by the philosopher Michel Foucault in the work that also lends its title to the current exhibition – Utopian Body.

As part of his research in Berlin under the Artistic Residency 110 program (2024), the artist studied how the theme of body politics is approached on the international art scene and how saturated it has become. Claudiu Ciobanu analyzes and reflects on both the modes of representation and the types of discourse possible through various media of expression, building his own utopia: thus, he chooses to paint heads – symbols of the mind. These heads are devoid of age, gender, race, or distinctive features, becoming a universal canvas, open to the viewer’s interpretation. They are neutral, suggesting that the mind is the generator of all connections, perceptions, and identities.

In resonance with Foucault's view that knowledge and power are closely intertwined, the head in Claudiu Ciobanu's works becomes a symbol of knowledge. The mind is what faces challenges, but it also creates them, and this duality is explored by the artist through a "Babylon" of faces – faces that belong to no one and yet to everyone.

The colors add an additional layer of meaning, inviting unconditioned interpretations – for some, red may evoke anger, for others, love. Thus, the same color can give rise to antagonistic narratives in the minds of different observers, highlighting the subjective nature of perception.

One element that operates and imprints a rhythm in the exhibition is the materiality of the characters, specifically their transparency. This can be viewed as a metaphor for the human condition, suggesting that the mind is, in fact, enclosed in a glass globe – influenceable, fragile, exposed like an open book, and more than that, vulnerable.

From Claudiu Ciobanu's perspective, vulnerability is born in the mind and manifests in the body, a body that we often manipulate clumsily, as an expression of our inner hesitations. We feel vulnerable in our bodies because of how we look, our weight, age, race, or illnesses, and we label these as flaws. However, the vulnerability we associate with our body is more mental than physical. It is a universal condition that transcends geographical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries, uniting humanity in a shared experience – vulnerability.

Often, vulnerability is what hinders evolution. We become trapped in it, prisoners of a mental state that exists only in our own perception. Through his works, Claudiu Ciobanu challenges us to confront these vulnerabilities, to see ourselves in the transparent faces he creates, and to reflect on our own minds. He invites us to look into a virtual mirror that transforms us into one of the characters in his works, making us aware of our own transparency.

By recognizing and overcoming these vulnerabilities, the artist suggests that it is the mind that shapes the body – it perceives, presents, degrades, and also honors it. We all possess, in fact, a utopian body, a point zero from which we can start anew, and which we can choose to instrumentalize to ennoble ourselves. In Utopian Body, Claudiu Ciobanu invites us to look beyond our material dimension to discover the true essence of our humanity – fragile and strong, vulnerable and capable.

Curator: Cristiana Ursache

Memento Vivere discusses the implications of the posthuman condition and how technology affects our lives, presenting the perspective of artist Claudiu Ciobanu in which contemporary painting can be used to explore posthumanist philosophy. In the current post-pandemic context, an exhibition project exploring posthumanism through contemporary painting can offer a powerful and stimulating way to actively address this subject and encourage reflection on the ways technology transforms our understanding of what it means to be human.

The artist Claudiu Ciobanu addresses themes such as blurring the boundaries between the physical and digital, the impact of technology on our cognitive abilities, and the ethical implications of technological advancements in everyday life. Through a central character, a child, the artist creates a utopian journey into a possible future of humanity. The child symbolizes the future and carries forward the legacy we leave as humanity. Through his paintings, he creates a space for these conversations that are no longer purely imaginary but can actually be felt in our lives, observing how technology increasingly dominates and transforms much of what we do daily, using not only digital tools but also, more recently, artificial intelligence.

Posthumanism focuses on ethical questions related to the use and control of technology and its impact on society. The pandemic has highlighted the relevance of these questions, especially regarding aspects such as how human life is shaped by technology. With little effort, it has become natural for work to be conducted online, for education to be through a screen, and even sports to be done remotely. As technology use continues to expand and evolve, posthumanist philosophy can offer valuable insights for addressing these ethical concerns and observing whether technology is being used in ways that genuinely consider human well-being. It is clear that posthumanist philosophy has become relevant in contemporary society, a fact anticipated by researchers like Rosi Braidotti who has been addressing this subject analytically and not utopically since the early 2000s. However, posthumanism has transcended the boundaries of philosophy and is increasingly found in visual arts in critical, utopian, provocative, or imaginative situations.

The artist speaks about relationships in the given context and communication, referring to the intersection between technology and language. In contemporary art, text-based elements are used to criticize how technology has changed the way we communicate and access information. Artists refer to technology as a way to change thinking and information processing and their impact on our abilities to understand the surrounding world.

Claudiu Ciobanu transforms the idea of communication from text to gesture, and this is reflected in the only work with two characters from the exhibition - the mother and daughter. Through the simple gesture of a maternal embrace, the artist captures a profound ancestral communication that can never be replaced by technology. Communication through touch and the experience of closeness to the other is what makes you want to live, to remember to feel - Memento vivere.

Curator, Cristiana Ursache

If in Lem's novel, Solaris, the fictional living planet was capable of telepathically communicating with space explorers and probing their unconscious, in the current exhibition, it becomes a screen capable of reflecting the artist's fears and uncertainties faced with an uncertain planetary future. What is the future of humanity? In what kind of social organization will the children of the coming decades live? What can we learn from the recent history of our anthropogenic footprint on nature?

The images of the fierce competition for cosmic colonization recently waged by tech giants Space X and Blue Origin, owned by multi-billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, have brought back to public attention the theme of the "space race" specific to the 1960s, intensely romanticized by popular culture. By proposing colonies on Mars or in space orbit, the space program developed by these private companies evokes both the subsuming of humanity's survival ideals to a cynical capitalist rationality, governed by the value of profit, and the futility of these endeavors as an alternative to the ongoing climate catastrophe unfolding before our eyes.

Although the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two superpowers of the Cold War era, was primarily aimed at the development of orbital satellites, interplanetary travel, and especially moon landing, space colonization remained secondary in the space programs developed by NASA and the Soviet Space Program.

The evocation of this colonial imaginary in the Solaris exhibition, presented at Artep Gallery, proposes a narrative fiction set in a post-apocalyptic future, where the forced colonization of space, becoming the only option for a devastated planet in search of a "Planet B," faces the inherent limitations of a socio-economic and political thinking captive to extractive capitalism, largely responsible for climate change.

The exhibition borrows not only the title but also some literary and visual motifs from Stanislav Lem's eponymous novel, as well as its adaptation by director Andrei Tarkovsky.

These borrowings are filtered through a personal exercise of cultural archaeology of the science-fiction imaginary adapted to become an instrument of existential analysis of an imminent planetary catastrophe. Thus, Claudiu Ciobanu stages in a non-linear dramaturgy the encounter of anonymous space explorers and settlers with the planet-organism from Lem's novel. In the paintings of this series, made in a technique close to painterly photorealism, the motif of modernist architecture in ruins, overrun by lush, uncontrollable vegetation, establishes a stable scenographic reference, ambiguously situating the protagonists in perpetual waiting. In an exercise of imagination mediated by digital technology, one of these characters becomes the subject of an augmented reality experiment, momentarily leaving the static presence that characterizes these characters, absorbed in meditative activities.

If in Lem's novel, Solaris, the fictional living planet was capable of telepathically communicating with space explorers and probing their unconscious, in the current exhibition, it becomes a screen capable of reflecting the artist's fears and uncertainties faced with an uncertain planetary future. What is the future of humanity? In what kind of social organization will the children of the coming decades live? What can we learn from the recent history of our anthropogenic footprint on nature?

Curator, Cristian Nae