MG+MSUM

IN MEMORIAM | Geta Brătescu (1926–2018)

Geta Brătescu, one of central figures of the Romanian avant-garde has died at 92.

 

Born in 1926 in Ploieşti, she spent most of her life in Bucharest. Her artistic practice included performances, drawings, textiles, films, installations, photography and printmaking.

 

The body, or better, an experience of the body, is the focus of work of Geta Brătescu, other major themes are the studio, mythology and classical literature. In her work, Brătescu uses many elements that speak about female sensitivity: textiles, a theater dress, pins, mirrors. All these elements, whether in her collages, tapestries, objects, or installations, give the impression of imminent and constant danger, the fragility of the body or life in general.

 

Geta Brătescu's career spanning more than six decades was very important for the European avant-garde art, however, she gained international recognition only recently. Her first major show was at Tate Liverpool in 2015, the exhibition in the Romanian pavilion at the last year Venice Biennale brought together works representative of all the stages of her artistic trajectory. She was included also in Documenta 14.

 

Moderna galerija, Ljubljana in the Arteast 2000+ collection keeps her work No to Violence from 1974.  The allusive shapes of this mural installation and drawings, being on view at the present exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, resemble prostheses needed by a deformed and exhausted body. The body is presented in relation to everything that threatens or supports it.

 

Geta Brătescu in a conversation with the curator and writer Christophe Cherix once said: »..I travelled a great deal to visit museums (but) not as a tourist - I made research trips, so to speak - and I think I learned one thing: that art is something very serious and that an artist must be responsible.«