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Art as Resistance to the “Religious Affair” and Consumerist Religion in Post-Communist Romania

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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

The chapter engages with political art and religion in post-communist Romania. The younger generation of Romanian contemporary artists employed the “religious” thematic clusters and tropes in their work, yet, for different ends and on different grounds than the Neo-Orthodox artists. They also employ the thematic clusters and the repertoires of religion and spirituality in order to challenge it (or at least to challenge “institutionalized religion” or the so-called religious affair in Romania). Thus, the all-too-familiar Byzantine icons, crosses, as well as other religious symbols and visual memorabilia are employed in defamiliarized contexts and approaches. Contemporary artists deploy traditional religious imagery as rhetorical devices featured in the “secular agora” for their political-ethical potentialities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Adrian Marino, Viaṭa Unui Om Singur sau Despre Sensul Autobiografiei Ideologice [A Lonely Man’s Life or About the Meaning of Ideological Autobiography] (Iaṣi: Polirom, 2010), 384 (Marino 2010).

  2. 2.

    Ibid.

  3. 3.

    Ibid.

  4. 4.

    Ibid.

  5. 5.

    Simona Sav, “Religion and Politics: A Summary of Perspectives,” in Religion and Politics in the 21st Century: Global and Local Reflections, eds. Natalia Vlas and Vasile Boari (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 5 (Sav 2013).

  6. 6.

    Duncan Light and Craig Young, “Urban Space, Political Identity and the Unwanted Legacies of State Socialism: Bucharest’s Problematic Centru Civic in the Post-Socialist Era,” in From Socialist to Post-Socialist Cities, eds. Alexander Diener and Joshua Hagen (New York: Routledge, 2015), 29–50 (Light and Young 2015).

  7. 7.

    Sav, “Religion and Politics.”

  8. 8.

    Ana Maria Luca, “Heavy Price Tag Overshadows Romanian Cathedral’s Ceremonial Opening,” Balkan Insight, 23 November 2018. https://balkaninsight.com/. Available at: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/11/23/heavy-price-tag-overshadows-romanian-cathedral-s-ceremonial-opening-11-22-2018/ (14 March 2020) (Luca 2018).

  9. 9.

    See “Remembering the historic consecration ceremony of the National Cathedral in Bucharest,” in Carousel Front Page, Patriarchate of Romania,” Orthodox Times, 26 November 2019. https://orthodoxtimes.com/. Available at: https://orthodoxtimes.com/remembering-the-historic-consecration-ceremony-of-the-national-cathedral-in-bucharest/ (22 January 2020) (Orthodox Times 2019).

  10. 10.

    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): 97 (Stan and Turcescu 2012).

  11. 11.

    Idem, 107.

  12. 12.

    Idem, 97–110. See also Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, “The Devil’s Confessors: Priests, Communists, Spies and Informers,” East European Politics and Societies, 19(4) (2005): 655–685 (Stan and Turcescu 2005).

  13. 13.

    Sorin Bocancea, “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, 2013), 274–308 (Bocancea 2013).

  14. 14.

    For a detailed overview of the Romanian Orthodox Church’s potential ability to provide social services to those in need see Dan Sandu, “Social Assistance: The Philanthropic Vocation of the Church,” in European Societies in Transition: Social Development and Social Work, ed. Dan Sandu (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2010), 422 (Sandu 2010).

  15. 15.

    Remus Gabriel Anghel, Romanians in Western Europe: Migration, Status of Dilemmas, and Transnational Connections (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2013), 4 (Anghel 2013).

  16. 16.

    Ibid.

  17. 17.

    Eugen Tomiuc, “Romania: Poverty Compounds Population Drop (Part 4),” Radio Free Europe, 19 October 2001. https://www.rferl.org/. Available at: https://www.rferl.org/a/1097762.html (22 January 2020).

  18. 18.

    Ibid.

  19. 19.

    Dumitru Sandu, Cosmin Radu, Monica Constantinescu, and Oana Ciobanu, “A Country Report on Romanian Migration Abroad: Stocks and Flows After 1989,” A Study for the Multicultural Centre Prague, November 2004. Prague: Multicultural Centre Prague. https://migrationonline.cz/. Available at: https://aa.ecn.cz/img_upload/f76c21488a048c95bc0a5f12deece153/Romanian_Migration_Abroad.pdf (14 March 2020) (Sandu et al. 2004).

  20. 20.

    Some studies argue that, to the contrary, the Romanian Orthodox theologians have inaugurated the ecumenical dialogue between East and West since 1948. For this perspective see Mihai Săsăujan, “Romanian Orthodox Theologians as Pioneers of the Ecumenical Dialogue between East and West: The Relevance and Topicality of Their Position in Uniting Europe,” in Religion and the Conceptual Boundary in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Thomas Bremer (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 146–165 (Săsăujan 2008).

  21. 21.

    Alexandru Mihăilă, “Facing Anti-Judaism in the Romanian Orthodox and the Liturgical Texts?,” Review of Ecumenical Studies Sibiu 11(2) (2019): 237–252 (Mihăilă 2019).

  22. 22.

    Theresa F. Latini, The Church and the Crisis of Community: A Practical Theology of Small-Group Ministry (Michigan: William B. Eerdmands Publishing Company, 2011), 184 (Latini and Theresa 2011).

  23. 23.

    Teodor Ioan-Colda, “Is There a Theological Side to the Romanian Exodus? The Phenomenon of Migration,” In Proceedings of Harvard Square Symposium, eds. Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru, Denise E. Simion and Viorica Burcea (Cambridge, MA: The Scientific Press, 2016) (Colda 2017). For a detailed view on contextual or indigenous theology, see also Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2004), 80 (Bevans 2004).

  24. 24.

    Idem, 309.

  25. 25.

    Idem, 311.

  26. 26.

    Alexandra Titu and Magda Cârneci. Experiment in Romanian Art since 1960 (Bucharest: Soros Center for Contemporary Art, 1997), 92 (Titu and Cârneci 1997).

  27. 27.

    Cristian Nae, “Revisiting Iconoclash Postsecularism, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Art from Romania,” IKON Journal of Iconographic Studies 11 (2018): 185 (Nae 2018).

  28. 28.

    Ibid.

  29. 29.

    Diana Ursan, “Critical art from Iași: between artistic hopes and anxieties,” Revista-Arta, 5 April 2016. https://revistaarta.ro/en/. Available at: https://revistaarta.ro/en/critical-art-from-iasi-between-artistic-hopes-and-anxieties/ (14 March 2020) (Ursan 2016).

  30. 30.

    Ṣtefan Voicu, “Contemporary Art Workers: Precarity and Alternatives in Romania,” Radical Anthropology 1(2013): 39 (Voicu 2013).

  31. 31.

    Greg Martin, Understanding Social Movements (London: Routledge, 2015) (Martin 2015).

  32. 32.

    The Monument dedicated to the Red Army was painted pink by an anonymous artist. In addition to paint, the monument’s meaning was also re-signified by graffiti written in pink reading “Bulgaria Apologizes,” in both the Bulgarian and Czech languages, referring to a belated political apology on behalf of the Bulgarian armed forces’ intervention in Prague’s Spring (1968). For a detailed account see also Kiril Avramov, “When the ‘Red Army’ goes Pink: Remodelling Bulgarian Public Monuments in Times of Civic Unrest,” European Consortium for Political Research Conference Proceedings (Glasgow: ECPR, 2014). https://ecpr.eu/. Available at: https://ecpr.eu/Events/PaperDetails.aspx?PaperID=16627&EventID=14 (14 March 2020) (Avramov 2014).

  33. 33.

    See Jenelle Davis, “Marking Memory: Ambiguity and Amnesia in the Monument to Soviet Tank Crews in Prague,” Public Art Dialogue, 6(1) (2016): 35–57 (Davis 2016).

  34. 34.

    Laura Ștefănuț and Ioana Păun, “Protest on my mind: why did one performance land a Romanian artist in psychiatric hospital?,” The Calvert Journal 22, 13 December 2017. https://www.calvertjournal.com/. https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/9362/protest-on-my-mind-political-performance-romania. (19 February 2020) (Ștefănuț and Păun 2017).

  35. 35.

    Ibid.

  36. 36.

    Ibid.

  37. 37.

    Alina Birzache, “Casting Fire onto the Earth: The Holy Fool in Russian Cinema,” in Religion in Contemporary European Cinema: The Postsecular Constellation, eds. Costica Bradatan and Camil Ungureanu (New York: Routledge, 2014), 29 (Birzache 2014).

  38. 38.

    Idem, 27.

  39. 39.

    Laura Ștefănuț and Ioana Păun, “Protest on my mind.”

  40. 40.

    Ibid.

  41. 41.

    Juliet Johnson, Priests of Prosperity: How Central Bankers Transformed the Postcommunist World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016) (Johnson 2016).

  42. 42.

    Luca Mavelli, “Neoliberalism as Religion: Sacralization of the Market and Post-truth Politics,” International Political Sociology 14(1) (2020): 57–76 (Mavelli 2020).

  43. 43.

    Ibid.

  44. 44.

    Jason Hackworth, “Religious Neoliberalism,” in The Sage Handbook of Neoliberalism, eds. Damien Cahill, Melinda Cooper, Martijn Konings, and David Primrose (London: Sage Publications, 2018), 323 (Hackworth 2018).

  45. 45.

    Alexandra Antohin, “Holy Water, Healing and the Sacredness of Knowledge,” in The Material Culture of Failure, eds. Timothy Carroll, David Jeevendrampillai, Aaron Parkhurst, and Julie Shackelford (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 79 (Antohin 2017).

  46. 46.

    Timothy Carroll, “The Ethics of Orthodoxy as the Aesthetics of the Local Church,” World Art, 7(2) (2017): 363 (Carroll 2017).

  47. 47.

    Molitfelnic [Euchologion] (Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic ṣi de Misiune Ortodoxă, 2013), 707–714 (Molitfelnic 2013).

  48. 48.

    Ibid.

  49. 49.

    See Luminiṭa Gătejel, “Appealing for a Car: Consumption Policies and Entitlement in the USSR, the GDR, and Romania, 1950s–1980s,” Slavic Review 75(1) (2016): 122–145 (Gătejel 2016).

  50. 50.

    Marius Lupșa Matichescu, Alexandru Dragan and Daniel Lucheș, “Channels to West: Exploring the Migration Routes between Romania and France,” Sustainability 9(10) (2017): 9 (Matichescu et al. 2017).

  51. 51.

    Alexandru Racu, Apostolatul antisocial. Teologie și neoliberalism în România postcomunistă [The Anti-social Apostoloate. Theology and Neoliberalism in Post-Communist Romania], (Cluj-Napoca: Act Publishing House, 2017) (Racu 2017).

  52. 52.

    For Western studies on this issue see Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Soveranity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006) (Schmitt 2006); Giorgio Agamben, The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013) (Agamben 2013); Giorgio Agamben, The Use of Bodies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015) (Agamben 2015), and Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Routledge, 2005) (Weber 2005).

  53. 53.

    For more on craftivism see Betsy Greer, Craftivism: The Art of Craft and Activism (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2014) (Greer 2014).

  54. 54.

    Xandra Popescu, “Heroism Rises from an Open Call,” Revista-Arta, 21 May 2015. https://revistaarta.ro/en/. Available at: https://revistaarta.ro/en/heroism-rises-from-an-open-call/ (14 March 2020). (Popescu 2015).

  55. 55.

    “The Candidate”, https://postspectacle.blogspot.com/2010/12/presidential-candidate-at-mall-during.html (25 January 2020).

  56. 56.

    Ibid.

  57. 57.

    Bogdan Popa, “How to Interrupt Happy Nationalism: From Butler Performativity to Radical Cosmopolitanism,” in Re-Grounding Cosmopolitanism: Towards a Post-Foundational Cosmopolitanism, eds. Tamara Cărăuș and Elena Paris (New York: Routledge, 2016), 250 (Popa 2016).

  58. 58.

    “The Candidate”, mins. 4:46–4:58 (25 January 2020).

  59. 59.

    Ibid.

  60. 60.

    François Gauthier and Tuomas Martikainen, “Introduction: the marketization of religion,” Religion 48(3) (2018): 361–366 (Gauthier and Martikainen 2018).

  61. 61.

    François Gauthier, “Religion is not what it used to be. Consumerism, neoliberalism, and the global reshaping of religion,” 6 October 2017. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2017/10/religion-is-not-what-it-used-to-be-consumerism-neoliberalism-and-the-global-reshaping-of-religion/. (27 January 2020) (Gauthier 2017).

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    Alexandra Georgiana Parasca and Ionel Muntele, “The impact of Saint Parascheva Pilgrimage on Tourism in Iaṣi County,” Ecoforum 4 (2015): 179 (Parasca and Muntele 2015).

  64. 64.

    Ibid.

  65. 65.

    Emily Nathan, “Strange Days: An Interview with Ciprian Mureşan,” Artnet. http://www.artnet.com/. Available at: http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/nathan/ciprian-muresan-7-20-11.asp. (10 March 2020) (Nathan n.d.).

  66. 66.

    I tackle this issue from a slightly different angle in my forthcoming chapter “Cultural Memory and Political Resistance through Religious/Spiritual Art in (Post) Communist Romania” in Religious Narratives in Contemporary Culture, eds Maria Sabina-Draga Alexandru and Dragoṣ Manea (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming) (Asavei forthcoming).

  67. 67.

    Valentina Iancu, “Transgression – A Discourse of Actuality in Romanian Contemporary Art?” Samizdat Online, 26 November 2014. http://www.samizdatonline.ro/. Available at: http://www.samizdatonline.ro/transgression-in-contemporary-art/ (21 February 2020) (Iancu 2014).

  68. 68.

    Ibid.

  69. 69.

    Several art magazines and newspapers wrote chronicles dedicated to Roman Tolici’s series of paintings. See for example Dana Altman, “Roman Tolici: Evanghelia După Moș Crăciun [Roman Tolici: The Gospel According to Santa Claus],” Observator Cultural 363: 15 March 2007 (Altman 2007).

  70. 70.

    Valentina Iancu, “Transgression.”

  71. 71.

    Olga Solovieva, Christ‘s Subversive Body. Practices of Religious Rhetoric in Culture and Politics (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2018), 5 (Solovieva 2018).

  72. 72.

    Idem, 6.

  73. 73.

    Idem, 253.

  74. 74.

    Ibid.

  75. 75.

    Peter Pavlovic, Beyond Prosperity? European Economic Governance as a Dialogue between Theology, Economics and Politics (Geneva: Globethics, 2017), 90 (Pavlovic 2017).

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    Maria Alina Asavei

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Asavei, M.A. (2020). Art as Resistance to the “Religious Affair” and Consumerist Religion in Post-Communist Romania. 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_9

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