2017 Catalogue Archive

Since the 1960s, Romanian artist Geta Brătescu’s complex and ambitious body of work has included photography, drawing, collage, sewing, sculpture, experimental film, video, and performance. Over the decades (early on, under the brutal dictatorship of communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu), Brătescu’s work unflinchingly explored issues of identity, the female self, literary archetypes, and the psychology of the studio. In recent years, the artist has focused on collage – described by the artist as “drawing with scissors” – in an ongoing series titled Game of Forms (Jeu des Formes), seen here in three untitled works. Typical of Brătescu’s experimental and playful approach, the work shows the artist creating three distinct birds out of essentially the same set of elements, as if the creative process were an unfolding set of investigations in constant flux. In recent years, numerous museum exhibitions have featured Brătescu’s work, and this year Brătescu represented Romania at the Venice Biennale.