Curator Bojana Piškur, PhD, presents Geta Brătescu’s (1926−2018, Romania) installation No to Violence (1974).

“A possible installation scene: A wooden frame is suspended from the ceiling. Protruding through some cloth and leaning against the wall are wooden poles joined with plaster and wrapped in medical bandages. At first glance they seem like old-fashioned prosthesis a deformed and exhausted body might need. These elements are additionally wrapped in heavy felt cloth and illuminated from the floor and the ceiling by two simple desk lamps. Although this is an installation, the elements are so evocative that the metaphorical power of the work is enhanced by the evident simplicity of the artifice. Geta Brătescu herself used the metaphor that she saw things exactly as a surgeon would while performing surgery. So what are we actually seeing in her installation? Are these youthful memories of the bombing of her hometown Ploiesti, where she learned how to bandage injured limbs? Or a scene in an interrogation room, where a body is in imminent danger? And what about the body: is it fragile or resisting the danger? In addition, there are drawings on the wall, some kind of instructions on how this ‘set design’ can be set up in a museum space − sometimes using all of the elements, sometimes only a few of them.”