The practice of Alex Mirutziu (*1981, Sibiu, Romania; lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania) extends over a wide range of media and activities, including sculpture, drawing, poetry, and performance, as well as critical and curatorial projects. In his work, which is both highly intellectual and deeply physical, he expands the notions of approximation and proximity in connection to time, presenting “dislocated modes of arrival at meaning.” In his modus operandi, he seeks to facilitate the understanding of the body as a “turbulent performative occasion” – drawing on the poetics of homelessness and invisibility. Through his artworks, he looks at ways of suspending the set-ups of doing and un-doing, thinking and un-thinking. Alongside TAH29 (The Artist Himself at 29), he acts within a collective body whose modus operandi is “retroactive irony.”

His exhibition at CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo, entitled “Gaining in a State of Debt”, features a new performative work, entitled Bottoms Know It, and a compilation of videos – including Dignity to the Unsaid(2017), But as a Document (2015), Doing Sub Thinking (2018), The Gaze is a Prolapse Dressed in Big Business(2018) and Stays Against Confusion (2016) – that contextualize the new work and at the same time open up new avenues of understanding. Conceived for CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo and featuring three performers – Oran Barak, Harel Grazutis, and Nunzia Picciallo – and three props, Bottoms Know It exposes what may come across as being implicit but unnoticed, which is not necessarily a feature of truth-making.

Through the combination of different streams of thoughts and informed by philosophical concepts that are always personalized and freely interpreted, the artist is capable of creating time-based and durational experiences between himself and the viewer, using the artwork – whether in the form of an object or a body (his own or somebody else’s) – as a channel, a catalyst, a sort of remote controller that is linking two individuals, himself and the viewer, possibly located in two different geographical and time zones. However, all the aforementioned notions never come as we usually expect them: “time-based” should be considered according to an unusual notion of time; “durational” should be perceived according to a larger scope of perception. The work of Alex Mirutziu not only makes us think, it also makes us think about the conditions allowing us to think, and un-think, to do, and un-do.

“Alex Mirutziu: Gaining in a State of Debt” is curated by Nicola Trezzi in close collaboration with the artist.

The exhibition is accompanied by printed matter in Hebrew, Arabic and English and performances on March 14, 19, 22 and April 1, 10 and 13.

“Alex Mirutziu: Gaining in a State of Debt” is supported by Invitro, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, and the Romanian Cultural Institute Tel Aviv; additional support provided by Galeria Sabot, Cluj-Napoca and TAROM.

Images

1

Bottoms Know It, 2019

View of the performance at CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo

2

Doing Sub Thinking, 2018

Video still

Courtesy of the artist

3

Dignity to the Unsaid, 2017

Video still

Courtesy of the artist

4

Stays Against Confusion, 2016

Video still

Courtesy of the artist