Abstract
This chapter offers an explorative survey of how and to what ends the relationships between politics, religion and artistic production evolved in (post-) communist Romania. Correspondingly, the chapter focuses first on the late communist hegemony’s ambivalent political approach to religion inspired artistic production. The second section surveys the relationship between political art and Eastern Christianity after the fall of the regime in 1989, and asks whether we can speak of a peculiar type of “Christian political art” in post-communist Romania. The following two sections also approach the relationship between political art and religion in post-communist Romania, but from the perspective of the secular-ecclesiastical synthesis and resistance against institutionalized and nationalized religion.
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Notes
- 1.
Zsuzsánna Magdó, The Socialist Sacred: Atheism, Religion and Mass Culture in Romania, 1948–1989. PhD Thesis in History (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016), 265 (Magdó 2016).
- 2.
Ibidem.
- 3.
Idem, 20.
- 4.
Sabina Păuța Pieslak, “Romania’s Madrigal Choir and the Politics of Prestige,” Journal of Musicological Research 26 (2&3) (2007): 232 (Pieslak 2007).
- 5.
See Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, “Religion and Politics in Romania: From Public Affairs to Church-State Relations,” Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective 6(2) (2012): 98 (Stan and Turcescu 2012).
- 6.
Idem, 99.
- 7.
Ibidem.
- 8.
Sorin Bocancea, “The Political and Ideological Repositioning of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Post-Communism,” in Religion and Politics in the twenty-first Century: Global and Local Reflections, eds. Natalia Vlas and Vasile Boari (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 276 (Bocancea 2013).
- 9.
Pieslak, “Romania’s Madrigal Choir”, 232.
- 10.
Medeea Stan, “Interviu Călin Dan,” [Interview with Călin Dan], Adevărul, 30 November 2019. https://adevarul.ro/. Available at: https://adevarul.ro/cultura/arte/interviu-calin-dan-directorul-muzeului-national-arta-contemporana-In-noaptea-cutremurului-77-ajutat-degajare-1_5ddfe66e5163ec427181a942/index.html (10 January 2020) (Stan 2019).
- 11.
Ibidem.
- 12.
Ibidem.
- 13.
Olga Ştefan, “Freedom in the Grey Zone,” Art in America 103(8) (2005): 124 (Ştefan 2005).
- 14.
Gordon Baldwin, Architecture in Photographs (Los Angeles: Paul Getty Museum, 2013), 12 (Baldwin 2013).
- 15.
Ibidem.
- 16.
Personal communication with Ion Grigorescu, 13 May 2006, Bucharest, Romania.
- 17.
Ibidem.
- 18.
Stan, “Interviu Călin Dan.”
- 19.
Sorin Dumitrescu, “Neputinţele tânărului Kessler,” [The Young Kessler’s Inaptitude], România Liberă, 21 January 1995 (Dumitrescu 1995).
- 20.
Beth Williamson, Christian Art. A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1 (Williamson 2004).
- 21.
Idem, 14.
- 22.
Carlos Carmonamedia, “Highlights from the ‘Orthodox is Better’ Exhibition,” Samizdat Art and Culture Magazine, June 2014: 37 (Carmonamedia 2014).
- 23.
Ibidem.
- 24.
Olimpia Bera and Gabriel Miloia, “Orthodox is Better,” Samizdat Art and Culture Magazine, June 2014: 11 (Bera and Miloia 2014).
- 25.
Idem, 14.
- 26.
The ‘Buna Vestire’ [‘Holy Annunciation’] Church is located in Vadu Crişului village in Oradea County, Romania.
- 27.
Astrid Ţârlea, cited in Oana Maria Zaharia, “Arta şi Modă într-o Biserică din România” [Art and Fashion in a Romanian Church], Vice, 7 February 2013. https://www.vice.com/ro. Available at: https://www.vice.com/ro/article/nzvq9b/arta-si-moda-intr-o-biserica (4 April 2020) (Zaharia 2013).
- 28.
Alina Staicu, “Icons and Other Wanders from Neverland,” Samizdat Art and Culture Magazine, June 2014: 58 (Staicu 2014).
- 29.
Ibidem.
- 30.
Ibidem.
- 31.
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility,” in Art and its Significance, ed. Stephen David Ross (State university of New York Press, 1994).
- 32.
According to Hans Belting acheiropoietic images are images which are not made by human hands. For example, the Holly Shroud is an acheiropoietic image of Jesus (for more on acheiropoietic images see Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 213.
- 33.
Benjamin “The work of art, “1994.
References
Baldwin, Gordon. 2013. Architecture in Photographs. Los Angeles: Paul Getty Museum.
Belting, Hans. 1994. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Benjamin, Walter. 1994. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility. In Art and Its Significance, ed. Stephen David Ross. New York: State University of New York Press.
Bera, Olimpia, and Gabriel Miloia. 2014. Orthodox is Better. Samizdat Art and Culture Magazine(June): 11–17.
Bocancea, Sorin. 2013. The Political and Ideological Repositioning of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Post-Communism. In Religion and Politics in the 21st Century: Global and Local Reflections, ed. Natalia Vlas and Vasile Boari. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Carmonamedia, Carlos. 2014. Highlights from the ‘Orthodox is Better’ Exhibition. Samizdat Art and Culture Magazine(June): 35–39.
Dumitrescu, Sorin. 1995. Neputinţele tânărului Kessler [The Young Kessler’s Inaptitude], România Liberă, 21 January 1995.
Magdó, Zsuzsánna. 2016. The Socialist Sacred: Atheism, Religion and Mass Culture in Romania, 1948–1989. PhD Thesis in History. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Păuṭa Pieslak, Sabina. 2007. Romania’s Madrigal Choir and the Politics of Prestige. Journal of Musicological Research 26 (2&3): 215–240.
Staicu, Alina. 2014. Icons and Other Wanders from Neverland. Samizdat Art and Culture Magazine(June): 57–59.
Stan, Lavina, and Lucian Turcescu. 2012. Religion and Politics in Romania: From Public Affairs to Church-State Relations. Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective 6 (2): 97–110.
Ştefan, Olga. 2005. Freedom in the Grey Zone. Art in America 103 (8): 124–134.
Williamson, Beth. 2004. Christian Art. A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Asavei, M.A. (2020). Looking Forward: Looking Back Through the Three Lenses of Art, Politics and Religion. In: Art, Religion and Resistance in (Post-)Communist Romania. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56255-7_10
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