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The Body in (Post-)Communist Art: A Site of Salvation and Resistance

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Art, Religion and Resistance in (Post-)Communist Romania

Part of the book series: Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe ((MOMEIDSEE))

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on the body’s instantiations in art of religious inspiration both during and after the fall of Romanian communism. The main argument put forth is that human body is rendered, in the artistic production under scrutiny, as a multidirectional instrument for both salvation and resistance to oppression. The artistic renderings of the human body analysed in this chapter display a vision of the physical body as a site of religious rituals and sacraments but also of the realization of the highest human potentiality for freedom and salvation of the soul through “self-care” that does not preclude the care for other human beings. For the artists discussed in this chapter being a body takes precedence over having a body.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Elaine Scarry, Bodies in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) (Scarry 1985).

  2. 2.

    See for example Katherine Verdery, The Political Life of Dead Bodies (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 54 (Verdery 2000); Eric Santner, The Royal Remains: The People’s Two Bodies and the Endgames of Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 48 (Santner 2011); Achille Mbembe, “Necropolitics,” Public Culture 15 (2003): 11–40 (Mbembe 2003).

  3. 3.

    Laura Grünberg, “Body-Art-Society,” in Art Embodied: Romanian Artists from the 80s, ed. Mihai Lucaci (Bucharest: UNArte, 2011), 11 (Grünberg 2011).

  4. 4.

    Simona Petracovschi, “Teaching and Touching in Physical Education in pre-and post-communist Romania,” in Touch in Sports Coaching and Physical Education: Fear, Risk, and Moral Panic, ed. Heather Piper (New York: Routledge, 2015), 107 (Petracovschi 2015).

  5. 5.

    Stefanie Proksch-Weilguni, “Performing Art History: Continuities of Romanian Art Practices in Post-Communist Performance,” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 27(1) (2019): 107–108 (Proksch-Weilguni 2019).

  6. 6.

    Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 26 (Foucault 1979).

  7. 7.

    Cosmin Costinaș, “The Actors of Subliminal History,” 2004. https://werkleitz.de/. Available at: https://werkleitz.de/en/the-actors-of-subliminal-history. (20 January 2020) (Costinaș 2004).

  8. 8.

    Pompiliu-Nicolae Constantin and Valentin Maier, “Sport and Physical Education in Communist Factories: from the Soviet Union to Romania,” Romanian Journal of History and International Studies 2(2) (2015): 217–232 (Constantin and Maier 2015).

  9. 9.

    Irina Makoveeva, “Soviet Sports as a Cultural Phenomenon: Body and / or Intellect,” Studies in Slavic Cultures 3 (2002): 9–32 (Makoveeva 2002).

  10. 10.

    Constantin and Maier, “Sport and Physical Education in Communist Factories”, 217.

  11. 11.

    Idem, 221.

  12. 12.

    Ibid.

  13. 13.

    Petracovschi, “Teaching and Touching in Physical Education,” 106–107.

  14. 14.

    Idem, 107.

  15. 15.

    Constantin and Maier, “Sport and Physical Education in Communist Factories”, 230.

  16. 16.

    Gheorghe Boldur-Lățescu, The Communist Genocide in Romania (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2004), 78 (Boldur-Lățescu 2004).

  17. 17.

    Simona Petracovschi and Jessica W. Chin, “Sports, Physical Practice, and the Female Body, 1980–1989: Women’s Emancipation in Romania under Communism,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 36(1) (2019): 35 (Petracovschi and Chin 2019).

  18. 18.

    Lutjona Lula, “Gender and Traditional Values During and After Communism: Detraditionalisation and Retraditionalisation in Albania and Romania,” Analize – Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies 9 (2017): 126 (Lula 2017).

  19. 19.

    Codruṭa Cuceu, “Gender, Body, and Politics during Communism,” Journal for the Studies of Religions and Ideologies 10 (2005), 198. http://www.jsri.ro/. Available at: http://www.jsri.ro/old/html%20version/index/no_10/codrutacuceu-articol.htm (29 March 2020) (Cuceu 2005).

  20. 20.

    Idem, 198.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    Denisa-Adriana Oprea, “Between the Heroine Mother and the Absent Woman: Motherhood and Womanhood in the Communist Magazine ‘Femeia’,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 23(3) (2016): 281–296 (Oprea 2016).

  23. 23.

    Florentina Andreescu, “The Changing Face of the Sacrificial Romanian Woman in Cinematographic Discourses,” Studia Politica: Romanian Political Science Review 11(4) (2011): 672 (Andreescu 2011).

  24. 24.

    Adriana Oprea, “Christian Paraschiv,” in Art Embodied: Romanian Artists from the 80s, ed. Mihai Lucaci (Bucharest: UNArte, 2011), 40 (Oprea 2011).

  25. 25.

    See Christian Paraschiv’s statement on his personal website: http://www.christianparaschiv.com/ (29 March 2020).

  26. 26.

    See Medeea Stan, “Interviu Christian Paraschiv, artist vizual: ‘În Occident, a trebuit să încep prin a înțelege sistemul: ce este un cont bancar, ce sunt impozitele’” [Interview with Christian Paraschiv, visual artist: In the West I had to start by understanding the system: what is a bank account, what are the taxes] Adevarul, 24 June 2017. https://adevarul.ro/. Available at: https://adevarul.ro/cultura/arte/interviu-christian-paraschiv-artist-vizual-In-occident-trebuit-incep-intelege-sistemul-cont-bancar-impozitele-1_594dea4d5ab6550cb87898fb/index.html (29 March 2020) (Stan 2017).

  27. 27.

    Ruxandra Balaci, “Photography – A Possible Chronology of An Experimental Chapter,” in Experiment in Romanian Art since the 1960 (Bucharest: Soros Centre for Contemporary Art, 1997), 70 (Balaci 1997).

  28. 28.

    Ibid.

  29. 29.

    Ibid.

  30. 30.

    Piotr Piotrowski, “Male Artist’s Body: National Identity vs Identity Politics,” in Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art since the 1950s, eds. Laura Hoptman and Tomáš Pospiszyl (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), 230. (Piotrowski 2002).

  31. 31.

    Ibid.

  32. 32.

    Proksch-Weilguni, “Performing Art History”, 106.

  33. 33.

    Idem, 107.

  34. 34.

    Ion Grigorescu, cited in Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996): 320 (Stiles and Selz 1996).

  35. 35.

    Theodor Redlow, cited in Kristine Stiles, “Ion Bitzan’s Desire.” Available at: https://cdn.panopticoncr.com/ionbit001/catalogue_uploads/Bitzan's%20Desire.pdf (29 March 2020) (Stiles 1992).

  36. 36.

    Ion Bitzan Foundation, Exhibition: Sexul lui Mozart [Exhibition: Mozart’s Sex], 1991. Artexpo, Bucharest. Ion Bitzan’s Catalogue Raisonné. https://www.ionbitzan.com/. Available at: https://www.ionbitzan.com/exhibitions/entry.php?id=33. (3 March 2020) (Bitzan 1991).

  37. 37.

    Proksch-Weilguni, “Performing Art History”, 99–120.

  38. 38.

    Ibid.

  39. 39.

    Idem, 107.

  40. 40.

    Adrian Guţă, quoted in Romanian Cultural Institute, “The Glory and the Limits of the Body: Bio-art Exhibition by Christian Paraschiv.” http://www.icr-london.co.uk/. Available at: http://www.icr-london.co.uk/article/the-glory-and-the-limits-of-the-body-experimental-bio-art-by-christian-paraschiv.html (24 March 2020) (Guţă 2011).

  41. 41.

    Ionuţ Cioană, “Ce spune celălalt / Corpul văzut de oameni, nu de aparate / Ștefan Sava, Ion Grigorescu / Galeria Ivan,” (What the Other Says/ The Body Seen by Humans, not by Machines/ Ștefan Sava, Ion Grigorescu / Ivan Gallery), 6 July 2018. https://medium.com/. Available at: https://medium.com/@ionut.cioana/ce-spune-cel%C4%83lalt-corpul-v%C4%83zut-de-oameni-nu-de-aparate-%C8%99tefan-sava-ion-grigorescu-galeria-344663c99805. (7 January 2020) (Cioană 2018).

  42. 42.

    For an account on the body as a medium of technological extension see Sita Popat, Sarah Whatley, Rory O’Connor, Abbe Brown & Shawn Harmon, “Bodily Extensions and Performance,” International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media 13(2) (2017): 101–104 (Popat et al. 2017).

  43. 43.

    Gabriella Giannachi, Virtual Theaters: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2004), 55 (Giannachi 2004).

  44. 44.

    Contemporary French artist Orlan’s controversial body art employs acts of bodily transformation via aesthetic surgeries and computer generated images in which “her head is digitally hybridised with the ‘head-sculptures, bone-structures, decorative prostheses and make-up of Mayan beauties (Ince 2000: 87). Likewise, in 1990 Orlan posed for a portrait photograph in which she wore the wig and make-up of the Bride of Frankenstein.” (Giannachi 2004: 54).

  45. 45.

    Among the contemporary artists who work with their body to test the physical endurance limits, we can mention Marina Abramovic, Ana Mendieta and Rebeca Horn, among others.

  46. 46.

    Cioană, “Ce spune celălalt / Corpul văzut de oameni [What the Other Says/ The Body Seen by Humans].”

  47. 47.

    Ibid.

  48. 48.

    Ibid.

  49. 49.

    Ibid.

  50. 50.

    Arthur Danto, “The Body in Pain. Fernando Botero’s latest series of paintings, inspired by the Abu Ghraib photos, immerse us in the experience of suffering in a way the original photographs never did,” The Nation, 9 November 2006. https://www.thenation.com/. Available at: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/body-pain/ (29 March 2020) (Danto 2006).

  51. 51.

    See for example Sorin Dumitrescu, Noi şi Icoana (Bucharest: Fundaţia Anastasia, 2010) (Dumitrescu 2010).

  52. 52.

    Ibid.

  53. 53.

    Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) (Belting 1994).

  54. 54.

    Matthew Milliner, “Where the Icons Aren’t Yet Dry,” First Things, 24 May 2016. https://www.firstthings.com/. Available at: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/05/where-the-icons-arent-yet-dry (22 February 2020) (Milliner 2016).

  55. 55.

    Christopher Merrill, Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain (Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2016), 137 (Merrill 2016).

  56. 56.

    Idem, 138.

  57. 57.

    Olga Solovieva, Christ’s Subversive Body. Practices of Religious Rhetoric in Culture and Politics (Evanston Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2018), 125 (Solovieva 2018).

  58. 58.

    Dominique Fernandez and Ferrante Ferranti, Romanian Rhapsody: photo 0.jpg (New York: Algora Publishing, 2000), 178 (Fernandez and Ferranti 2000).

  59. 59.

    Ibid.

  60. 60.

    Sorin Dumitrescu, “Archangel Michael’s Hand, A few Intuitions on Teandric Morphology,” in Experiment in Romanian Art Since 1960 (Bucharest: Soros Center for Contemporary Art, 1997), 144 (Dumitrescu 1997).

  61. 61.

    Ibid.

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    Ibid.

  64. 64.

    Idem, 145.

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  1. Department of Russian and East European Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Maria Alina Asavei

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Asavei, M.A. (2020). The Body in (Post-)Communist Art: A Site of Salvation and Resistance. 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_7

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