Page 39 - Studio International - July August 1971

and scandal than the collages.
Hegel teaches us that few people have either
an inventive or a creative spirit, they can only
recognize what they already know. Bitzan is
in this way especially exposed to conflict with
the public, whom he has nevertheless accus-
tomed to something, notably the idea of
change. But today both the collages and the
marvellous sleeves represent a stage that has
been passed. Shortly after the exhibition the
artist had already rejected it. Nevertheless it
has remained relevant to a method the artist
frequently uses : first he invents objects.
Nothing in his work fascinates him more than
these objects, produced by the free play of
imagination. He then reproduces them in
coloured drawings or in engravings with pure
forms and lines, thus sublimating them.
Matisse did the same more than once and the
procedure is not new. But Bitzan has reinvented
it out of an organic necessity in his art : an art
of metamorphoses, that is to say a vital art, as
well as an art of great refinement. In his most
recent works he has made use of materials
which are by tradition anti-artistic: sheet-iron,
rubber, linen, and industrially manufactured
forms; metal tins, tyres, cans and other
ordinary inexpressive materials and objects
which we see daily but of which we are almost
unaware. Out of these Bitzan creates an
extraordinary world. His groupings of hard and
soft forms (always cylindrical) are not
unrelated to man's actions and practical life,
at any time in his evolution. The artist
considers that since man has always been
obliged to handle soft materials that fall down,
which can be hung and moulded—becoming in
his hands expressive—these materials deserve to
be given another aesthetic value. Separated
from their functional aspect they acquire the What he has to say is so important that the Ion Bitzan
mystery and the poetry of a work of art. formal aspect is of little interest, and if one of Assembly 1971
Metal and printed cloth
In his woodcuts—a synthesis, inferred out his paintings happens to be 'beautiful' he 2 Horia Bernea
of a reality created by himself— Bitzan brings us deliberately eliminates this aspect. Horia Ensemble of Contact Entities 1970-71
from the disquieting world of unaccustomed Bernea would be considered the most important Mixed media
forms and objects to a space of meditation, painter in Rumania since 1945, if the fashion 3 Paul Neagu
The Tactile Cake-man 1970
illumined by the classicism of his language and for the post-impressionist tradition were not Wood, oil, glass, fabric, mosaic
the simplicity of his message. The most recent still so strong. In his art he introduces symbols
work to leave his studio is a woodcut on a piece connected with the world in which he lives.
of paper thirty-two centimetres high and ten For instance his diagrams of productivity,
metres long, crossed medially by a single red diagrams which in Rumania, a socialist country
line—probably one of the largest engravings with a planned economy, we see daily in every
made by a modern artist. This summer in enterprise; they express daily life and one of
Amsterdam he is exhibiting a similar woodcut its myths. After his diagram period, Bernea
done on a piece of fine Japanese paper one- turned to shoulder dumb-bells, which bring us
hundred metres long; he will then go to the face to face with other still more acute problems
baker's and divide it equally and free of charge —they make us consider our own selves, our
among all those who come to buy bread. individual destinies. However, things are not
Horia Bernea (b. 1938) is an artist of great as simple as they may seem. Horia Bernea's
originality, whose closest affinities are with artistic activity has a spiritual character. He
Van Gogh and with the best type of jazz. He cultivates a direct language, without
is an artist of volcanic temperament, whose preconceived ideas, starting from the premise
paintings are full of colour and tension. Bernea that what we think of an object or a relationship
has something decisive to say, but he is restrained is more important than the object itself and its
by what seems to be difficulty in expressing realization. The 'emotionally transcendent'
himself. Compression leads naturally to symbols have to make the work act directly
explosion. Then the painter feels at ease, without intermediaries or associations;
lucidly following his fundamental idea. that is, they must impose a solution that is free
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