The Cluj Art Scene in the Spotlight

This month’s big opening is at the Műcsarnok, where a major survey of contemporary art from Romania’s second city Cluj-Napoca promises to lift the lid on an international phenomenon. Always in search of the next best thing, a stream of art world cognoscenti have already made the pilgrimage to the northern Transylvanian town to visit galleries and artist studios associated with the Cluj School, which bares comparison with similar periods of creativity in cities such as Leipzig. Their ‘discoveries’ have been catapulted into the high velocity world of glossy art magazines, commercial galleries and exclusive art fairs from New York to Basel, where they are currently exotic art flavour of the month.

While many Clujites have reservations about being grouped together as an artistic school, seeing the term as a opportunistic label coined by outsiders with little deeper knowledge of the complexities of the local scene, they cannot help feeling proud that their home town has eclipsed the capital Bucharest in its prominence on the international art map. The exhibition at the Műcsarnok steers a diplomatic course through the competing factions of the local art world, deciding to focus on the internationalism and diversity of the city’s art life, with the judicious title ‘European Travellers: Art from Cluj Today’ and covering everything from sound bands and alternative art spaces to the handful of artists who have truly made it into the ranks of international celebrity.

The Cluj School first emerged as a coherent movement at the 2007 Prague Biennial with a recognisable style typified by the solemn and pensive canvases of Victor Man and the disconcerting energies emanating from the paintings of Adrian Ghenie. Along with examples of their work, the show also features the art of other up and coming Cluj School painters, such as Marius Bercea, Radu Comşa, Şerban Savu and Mircea Suciu. On the other side of the coin are the more new media-based, alternative artists of the wider Cluj scene, represented here by the likes of Mircea Cantor, whose successful international career predates and floats above the whole Cluj phenomenon, and Ciprian Mureşan, whose post-conceptual and darkly humorous work has charmed exhibition goers from New York to Sydney via Berlin.

The Paintbrush Factory, Cluj

Behind the success of individual artists lies a remarkable infrastructure of studios,galleries and art magazines that have flourished in the last decade, providing an essential ingredient in the success of the whole Cluj School operation. The mythical heart of Clujian creativity can be found in the Paintbrush Factory, whose role is explored in depth in the exhibition, a multi-faceted venue that is home to a string of artist studios and galleries, alongside the rehearsal and performance spaces of contemporary dance and theatre groups. The factory has a symbolically-charged history, as its original role in the production of paintbrushes long ago migrated to China, allowing the picturesque industrial ruins to be reinvented as a site of post-Fordist urban invention.

Among the prime movers of the Cluj scene is gallerist Mihai Pop, who runs the prominent gallery Plan B, which is based in the Factory, but also has a more collector-accessible outlet in Berlin. Also housed in the Factory and competing for a slice of commercial cake are Bázis, which was founded by a trio of ethnic Hungarians, and Sabot Gallery, which describes itself as a  ‘kitchen-born-project’ that aims to ‘verify the raison d’être of a gallery in the third millennium.’ Cluj’s most famous art magazine is IDEA, which was founded by Timotei Nădăşan more than a decade ago, and has collaborated with influential figures such as artist Ciprian Mureşan and curator Attila Tordai as editors.

The mysterious combination of external conditions, good timing and the X factor of artistic genius in the success of Cluj as a global art brand is something that many would love to copy, or at least understand, and this timely exhibition at Budapest’s Műcsarnok may even provide some answers.