{"id":1281,"date":"2015-08-06T10:37:55","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T10:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/?p=1281"},"modified":"2017-07-01T12:56:01","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T12:56:01","slug":"dan-perjovschi-vanishing-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/dan-perjovschi-vanishing-points\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Perjovschi: Vanishing Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Perjovschi draws his trademark\u00a0figures on the walls of the world\u2019s\u00a0most important art institutions, but he\u00a0couldn\u2019t do them without Romania. \u25cf Article published in\u00a0DoR Magazine<\/a>, Winter 2011\/2012.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Irina Cri\u0219an<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a cold October morning and Dan\u00a0Perjovschi, the most internationally-\u00a0renowned living Romanian\u00a0artist, is getting ready to begin his\u00a0second day of drawing on a wall in\u00a0Craiova, one of the largest towns\u00a0in Romania\u2019s impoverished south. The wall belongs to the\u00a0contemporary art center Club Electroputere, which shares\u00a0the building with a fitness club, a canine association, a dance\u00a0school and a local law organization. Adrian Bojenoiu, one of\u00a0the curators who invited him here, unlocks the door, makes\u00a0him a cup of coffee and offers him cookies. Meanwhile, Perjovschi\u00a0leans on a black vinyl bar built in the 90s and talks to\u00a0a young local street artist. The powdered sugar coating the\u00a0cookies gets all over the long moustache that droops over his\u00a0lower lip and falls onto the glasses that hang around his neck,\u00a0held together with scotch tape. He wears a cap over his shoulder-\u00a0length hair, a scarf and black hoodie over a beige vest\u00a0with scores of pockets, and worn-out\u00a0jeans over long johns. He is prepared\u00a0for the cold in his own way, without\u00a0looking like he went through too\u00a0much trouble to dress up.<\/p>\n

\"_MG_7287\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bojenoiu and Alexandru Niculescu,\u00a0the young curators who created\u00a0a contemporary art center in the\u00a0unlikeliest of places \u2013 an electronics\u00a0factory\u2019s union club \u2013 brought Perjovschi\u00a0here to draw on one side of\u00a0the building\u2019s facade \u2013 a lumpy white\u00a0and gray wall, with traces of rain\u00a0and rust, adorned with architectural\u00a0details that remind you of the work\u00a0of the famous Romanian sculptor\u00a0Br\u00e2ncu\u015fi, who was born in the region.\u00a0Since the opening of the club in\u00a0May 2010, the artist has already been\u00a0part of a group exhibition and held a\u00a0lecture here, but this is the first time\u00a0he is drawing on a wall (the works\u00a0will be up at least until next spring).<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe you have to have\u00a0many reasons to invite Perjovschi\u00a0to perform,\u201d Bojenoiu says. \u201cHis discourse\u00a0is easy to put into place and\u00a0to understand, by connoisseurs and\u00a0people less interested in art alike.\u00a0Any contemporary art center wants\u00a0such an event, understood by a large\u00a0audience, with low production costs\u00a0and maximum artistic quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perjovschi has drawn and exhibited\u00a0at great museums all over the\u00a0world \u2013 by any standard, he is an\u00a0international art superstar. In Romania,\u00a0the invitations come less frequently,\u00a0but he almost never turns\u00a0one down, no matter the context.<\/p>\n

An hour later, he finishes his third\u00a0cup of coffee, exits the building and climbs into the basket\u00a0of a crane parked in front of the club for him. The engine\u00a0starts and lifts him nearly ten meters off the ground, facing\u00a0the wall. He opens a grey suede notebook and flicks through\u00a0it. The \u201cseeds\u201d of the ideas that end up on the wall are in\u00a0there. For every project, he makes \u201cpre-drawings\u201d and then\u00a0lets himself be inspired by what he sees on the streets and\u00a0what he reads in the local papers. Today\u2019s notebook has several\u00a0empty pages and sketches in black and blue ink that he\u00a0did in his hometown of Sibiu and elsewhere, but also some\u00a0ideas about Craiova \u2013 football, Br\u00e2ncu\u015fi references (a man\u00a0bungee jumping from the top of Br\u00e2ncu\u015fi\u2019s Endless Column)\u00a0He draws with his finger in the air, skims through the notebook\u00a0some more and signals to the crane driver: just a hair\u00a0closer. He is used to working with cranes or scaffolds, he has\u00a0already done it in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney\u00a0and even Bucharest, last spring, when he covered a wall of\u00a0the French Institute in drawings inspired by the Romanian\u00a0philosopher Cioran. (\u201cTo be is to be\u00a0cornered\u201d was Perjovschi\u2019s favorite\u00a0quote because it spoke about Romanians who have always\u00a0been caught in their own history.)<\/p>\n

He gets on his knees in the left corner of the basket and\u00a0starts sketching with a stubbed marker. A speech bubble appears,\u00a0that comes out of a TV and hits the viewer. Then he\u00a0takes a can of spray paint and writes in large capital letters:\u00a0\u201cThis wall does not advertise anything. If unpleasant consequences\u00a0occur, consult art critics.\u201d Yesterday was his first\u00a0time drawing on a wall with spray paint. His first try \u2013 two\u00a0wobbly parallel lines \u2013 is visible on the asphalt below.<\/p>\n

He moves the crane\u2019s arm to the right, maneuvers under the\u00a0basket railing and draws a man talking and pushing buttons\u00a0on several mobile phones at the same time: social movement.\u00a0Then he stretches over to the right, climbs onto the railings,\u00a0although his knee hurts, and draws three men sitting side by\u00a0side at a table, their legs intertwining underneath it: political\u00a0movement. His art is neither caricature, nor graffiti, nor\u00a0cartoon, but analytical drawings that tell stories and speak\u00a0equally to the museum-goers and to the custodians, who finally\u00a0understand what they are guarding. Today, Perjovschi\u2019s\u00a0stories talk about Romania, about Br\u00e2ncu\u015fi, about grilled\u00a0sausages, about things and ideas you can\u2019t find anywhere else.<\/p>\n

In the middle of the wall, the artist draws an SUV driver\u00a0who cannot see the road from the height of his car, although
\nthere are people on the street. Typical Perjovschi: simple,\u00a0without many details, without unnecessary flourish. For
\ninstance, a man with one leg shorter than the other: credit.\u00a0Technically, a 10-year-old could do it. But Perjovschi\u2019s art
\nis not only a couple of lines drawn in marker but also the\u00a0thought behind them, the visual translation of an idea or a
\nsituation. \u201cAnyone can make a circle, arms and legs,\u201d he once\u00a0explained to me. \u201cBut what do you do with that circle? How\u00a0do you visually express a thought? I advise everybody to draw\u00a0a relationship, say, me and my neighbor. Draw that. It\u2019s very\u00a0hard to visually express an idea, a feeling, a relationship, and\u00a0to make it perceivable to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wall in Craiova, along with one of his wife Lia\u2019s exhibitions\u00a0inside the club, and a workshop with young artists
\nthat they will both conduct, is Perjovschi\u2019s fourth project in\u00a0Romania this year. (A fifth one will follow.) Five, as opposed\u00a0to a couple in previous years. He has always been active and\u00a0present, both at home and abroad. He has done exhibitions\u00a0and lectures, but in Romania he has mainly been featured in\u00a0unofficial spaces, independent galleries and places outside of\u00a0Bucharest. At 50, his international career has finally shone\u00a0a light on his national one and Perjovschi\u2019s art has started\u00a0catching on in Romania as well.<\/p>\n

Half an hour later, the crane descends and the artist takes\u00a0a break. He still has to make a few drawings, he has to help\u00a0Lia set up her exhibition in the club and he has to conduct a\u00a0workshop in a room with no heat the next day. He will carry\u00a0chairs, move display cases and plug in electrical radiators. He\u00a0says this reminds him of his youth, when he used to do things\u00a0in improper conditions. In his country, most of his projects are\u00a0like this. \u201cEverything I do in Romania is somehow strained because\u00a0of the conditions here. I put up with it because I know it.\u201d\u00a0He feels better in Western art institutions, where he is usually\u00a0spared such nuisances, where people\u00a0understand him better and he is treated\u00a0with more respect.<\/p>\n

A handful of people have gathered\u00a0around Club Electroputere to watch\u00a0Perjovschi work. Some of them are
\nartists, journalists or friends of the\u00a0curators, but many are just bystanders:\u00a0high school boys with backpacks,
\nstudents from the university across\u00a0the street, a mother who doesn\u2019t know\u00a0how to explain the scene to her curious son, a man with missing\u00a0teeth, in a teddy bear sweater, who marvels at the drawings.\u00a0A blonde reads the joke about art critics and laughs, but\u00a0the man she is with seems disinterested. An older woman\u00a0with heavy bags is outraged: \u201cWhat\u2019s with the doodles?\u201d<\/p>\n

People come and go, but there are never more than a dozen\u00a0watching (hundreds have watched him draw at MoMA, in\u00a02007). Every time somebody new appears Perjovschi looks\u00a0away: \u201cOh, an audience!\u201d When he can draw without one,\u00a0he feels less exposed, because many people don\u2019t understand\u00a0his kind of art in Romania. But he remains connected to his\u00a0country, which gives him ideas and energy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s already turned cold by the time Perjovschi takes a\u00a0last look at the wall, three hours later. He likes it. A couple\u00a0of drawings are still missing from the foot of the wall; he\u00a0will finish them the day after tomorrow. A dark-haired\u00a0little girl, in a short-sleeved T-shirt, asks: \u201cWhat do these\u00a0drawings mean?\u201d The artist points to a ham cut in half by\u00a0a dotted line and explains: \u201cthe bone is for the poor, the\u00a0meat for the rich. And that,\u201d he says pointing to a black<\/p>\n

egg-shaped form, \u201cis a Romanian sausage that wants to\u00a0grow up to be a Big Mac. And together they are a mirror of
\nwhat you see on the other side:\u00a0the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Perjovschi was born in\u00a0Sibiu (central Romania) 50 years\u00a0ago, at the height of the communist regime. At school,he\u00a0had the power to get any classmate thrown out of class with\u00a0drawings that could make anyone laugh loudly enough to irk\u00a0a teacher. Beginning with fifth grade, his parents sent him\u00a0to art school, where he first felt art can give you freedom.\u00a0For the drawing or painting classes, they didn\u2019t have to wear\u00a0uniforms, while for the rest the teachers weren\u2019t very strict.\u00a0They didn\u2019t have to harvest corn or potatoes like other students\u00a0because their colleagues in violin class were not supposed\u00a0to injure their fingers. But the school\u2019s objective was\u00a0\u201cmodest\u201d: teach students to draw or paint, not think about\u00a0art. And that wasn\u2019t enough for Perjovschi.<\/p>\n

In middle school, he was considered stubborn so the teachers\u00a0sat him next to Lia, one of the \u201cgood kids\u201d. They liked
\neach other and became sweethearts in the eighth grade. In\u00a0the tenth, Lia dumped him, even though she found him to be\u00a0\u201cvery intelligent, delicate, polite and tidy\u201d. By graduation they\u00a0were dating again, and have now been married for 28 years.<\/p>\n

After high school, Perjovschi left for Moldova, in northeast\u00a0of Romania, where he got into the painting program of the Ia\u015fi Arts Conservatory. He soon discovered everything\u00a0there was a \u201cslow suicide by red wine\u201d. People got drunk like\u00a0clockwork, the school didn\u2019t have painting supplies or heat\u00a0and the program, speaking generally, was going to hell.<\/p>\n

The good thing about going to a shitty school is that \u201cyou\u00a0don\u2019t believe in the rules people plant in your head,\u201d Perjovschi\u00a0says. He graduated top of his class in 1985, winning the\u00a0right to choose his first employer from a state list. He opted\u00a0to go across the country to the Oradea Museum (in the northwest),\u00a0where he worked for five years. He was responsible for\u00a0the ex libris collection, but he soon started doing everything:\u00a0hanging pictures on the walls, covering paintings with glass,\u00a0putting up art shows. Lifting heavy crates gave him an umbilical\u00a0hernia and the doctors removed his navel in surgery.<\/p>\n

The time he spent in Oradea was his true artistic education.\u00a0He started exhibiting with the members of Atelier 35, a sort of\u00a0youth subdivision of the Romanian Artists\u2019 Union. He would\u00a0draw squares on long pieces of paper and sketch characters,\u00a0signs and symbols on each one; he would do photography,\u00a0field art, all sorts of things \u201cthat defied the rules.”<\/p>\n

Communist censorship was more tolerant in the west of\u00a0Romania. \u201cThey had a problem with Hungary, you weren\u2019t\u00a0supposed to put red, white and green in your paintings (the\u00a0colors of the Hungarian flag), but otherwise you could jump\u00a0on your head on the fields, they didn\u2019t care!\u201d Although the\u00a0work of Atelier 35 was avant-garde, it generally didn\u2019t criticize\u00a0the system. \u201cPerhaps it was the sand pit we all played in to\u00a0eliminate tensions,\u201d Perjovschi says, regretting the \u201cpolitical\u00a0nearsightedness\u201d they all had back then. Their only form of\u00a0dissidence was making art shows every ten days in a town\u00a0where nothing happened.<\/p>\n

The mid-eighties were good times for Lia as well. She had\u00a0come with Perjovschi to Oradea because she hadn\u2019t been accepted\u00a0to the Bucharest art school. She was working as a stage\u00a0designer in the local theater. She couldn\u2019t exhibit alongside\u00a0Atelier 35 because she didn\u2019t have a university diploma, so\u00a0she made art in their flat. It was here that Perjovschi made\u00a0Red Apples, a project that became a benchmark for his later\u00a0work. In the summer of 1988, during Lia\u2019s first vacation as\u00a0a university student, he covered the walls and furniture in\u00a0paper and filled them with drawings and declarations of love.\u00a0It was a surprise for his wife, who was craving artistic experiment,\u00a0but Perjovschi says he did it half for himself, to show\u00a0off his artistic bravery. \u201cWe were in a friendly competition\u00a0from the beginning. We always surprised and each other and\u00a0stimulated each other\u2019s ambition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perjovschi was in his home town of Sibiu in December 1989,\u00a0when the communist regime collapsed. He spent the first\u00a0days of the revolution on the streets with Lia, dodging tear\u00a0gas and bullets, and later sought refuge in a friend\u2019s house,\u00a0where they drank water from pickle jars (tap water was supposedly\u00a0poisoned), smoked and talked about freedom. By the\u00a0time he got back to Oradea, in January 1990, he was the sole\u00a0revolutionary in town so he was made chief of the National\u00a0Salvation Front, the first post-communist political party,\u00a0which soon disappointed him.<\/p>\n

Later, in 1990, he got a job in the newly formed department\u00a0of youth in the Romanian Ministry of Culture, andmoved to\u00a0Bucharest. He didn\u2019t have any office experience, but he learned\u00a0on the go that he had to befriend the secretaries and chase\u00a0after the minister in train stations to get papers signed, that\u00a0more time was lost in the institution\u2019s corridors than in dealing\u00a0with foreign partners, and that anything is possible within\u00a0an administration. In his years at the ministry, he organized\u00a0and curated the first ever Romanian contemporary art exhibition\u00a0abroad (in 1990, in the Hungarian town of Szombathely)\u00a0and financed the installation of the group subREAL in the first\u00a0international biennial of Istanbul, in 1992 (the installation\u00a0consisted of 100 scooters with ball bearings, the main Romanian\u00a0smuggling commodity back then).<\/p>\n

In May 1990, when students\u2019 anti-regime protests started\u00a0in Bucharest\u2019s University Square, Perjovschi split his time between\u00a0the government and the people rallying against it. Lia\u00a0was head of the Student\u2019s League in the Arts School and was\u00a0actively involved. On June 13th, policemen invaded the square\u00a0and started beating the crowd. Perjovschi watched them from\u00a0the top floor of the National Theater. He saw police forces all\u00a0retreat at once and people reclaim the square. The next morning,\u00a0miners from the Jiu Valley reached Bucharest by the bus\u00a0loads, violently confronted students and professors and besieged\u00a0universities and the headquarters of historical political\u00a0parties. On June 15th, Romania\u2019s president Ion Iliescu thanked\u00a0the miners for saving democracy. (To this day, it hasn\u2019t been\u00a0officially established who summoned the miners to Bucharest,\u00a0although many believe it was the governing regime.)<\/p>\n

A couple of days later, Perjovschi went on an official visit to\u00a0Germany with colleagues from the ministry in order to sign\u00a0contracts for cultural projects. There he discovered the true\u00a0consequences of the mineriad\u0103, as the violent interventions\u00a0of miners in Bucharest would come to be called: \u201cWe didn\u2019t\u00a0see the mayor, but the deputy from the parks\u2019 administration.\u00a0We couldn\u2019t understand why, but they were right. We were\u00a0the government.\u201d Because of the mineriad\u0103, Perjovschi says,\u00a0many Romanian artists didn\u2019t get the chance to exhibit in Germany\u00a0or receive grants.<\/p>\n

He never escaped the memory of those public clashes, so\u00a0most of the times when he was invited to work in the Romanian\u00a0public space, he chose University Square. In September\u00a02007 he did a project in the square with two living statues,\u00a0the miner and the student, who sat face to face, back to back\u00a0or side by side a few hours each day for a week. Perjovschi\u00a0himself portrayed the student on the first day. The purpose of\u00a0the project was to remind people in Bucharest about what had\u00a0happened in that particular place.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the 90s, Perjovschi\u2019s administrative duties\u00a0would leave him some time for art. He published drawings\u00a0in the literary magazine Contrapunct; he made illustrations\u00a0and posters for Humanitas publishing house (one of them, a\u00a0man who reads while walking, survives to this day on the publisher\u2019s\u00a0plastic bags); he drew logos, including that of the National\u00a0Theater. But his most profound association was and still\u00a0is with 22 magazine, which is still his official employer.<\/p>\n

He started illustrating the magazine at the end of 1991,\u00a0when he reinterpreted its logo for the 100th issue. The weekly\u00a022 was one of the main voices of the 1990s Opposition\u00a0and Perjovschi got involved in its political and cultural debates.\u00a0His art became critical and attitude-driven. Gabriela\u00a0Adame\u015fteanu, writer and editor-in-chief of the magazine\u00a0until 2005, didn\u2019t ask to see his drawings before publication\u00a0and gave him a lot of freedom. To this day, he doesn\u2019t have\u00a0to present his illustrations to the editor-in-chief. The managing\u00a0editor, R\u0103zvan Br\u0103ileanu, explains the texts to him in\u00a0a few words and Perjovschi makes several sketches, drawing\u00a0a rectangle around the one he prefers. It\u2019s a good sign if\u00a0Br\u0103ileanu laughs. If not, together\u00a0they choose another drawing.<\/p>\n

\u25cf<\/p>\n

In 1993, Perjovschi got a tattoo\u00a0of the word \u201cRomania\u201d on his\u00a0left arm. It was done in public, in the yard of Timi\u015foara\u00a0Museum\u2019s art department, by a friend of a friend using four\u00a0pins tied together with string and dipped in ink. The tattoo\u00a0was interpreted by Westerners as a nationalist declaration,\u00a0but Perjovschi wanted to state the exact opposite: that\u00a0he was marked, like cattle, that he came from the country\u00a0where the ashes of dead revolutionaries had been thrown\u00a0into the sewers, the country where the president brought\u00a0in miners to smother protests.<\/p>\n

Perjovschi hadn\u2019t had the freedom to travel in communist\u00a0years, so after 1990 he went wherever he was called. (\u201cI
\nwanted to eat up as many kilometers as I could.\u201d) In 1994,\u00a0he received a two month grant from the American embassy\u00a0in Bucharest: he crossed America from North to South and\u00a0from one coast to another. He went to small, medium and\u00a0large towns; he visited important museums and alternative\u00a0art spaces; he met with artists and curators and he grew to\u00a0understand that one must work in order to make it on the\u00a0real artistic scene.
\nUpon return to Romania, he quit the Culture Ministry,\u00a0keeping only his job at 22. Then he transformed the studio
\nhe had received from the Artists\u2019 Union into a sort of\u00a0meeting place. Together with Lia, he collected catalogues,
\nbooks, slides, newspapers, photocopies, brochures and\u00a0posters that reconstructed the past 50 years in international
\nart history and offered this \u201cmissing information\u201d to\u00a0anyone who was interested. It was the birth of the Contemporary\u00a0Art Archive, later renamed Center for Art Analysis,\u00a0a half-institution-half-art-project that became one of Lia\u2019s\u00a0main projects.<\/p>\n

It was also in the U.S. that Perjovschi first made his\u00a0drawings directly on the wall, in 1995. He spent a month at\u00a0Franklin Furnace, a New York space dedicated to ephemeral\u00a0forms of art, and he covered the walls in pencil drawings.\u00a0At the opening, he gave visitors erasers. It was the first time\u00a0he did a \u201cproject,\u201d not an exhibition, and that gave him the\u00a0courage to take on the world.<\/p>\n

Four years later, he found himself in one of the most visible\u00a0artistic events of the world: the Venice Biennale. Alongside\u00a0subREAL, he represented Romania in a project curated\u00a0by Judit Angel. It was hell to organize: the wall sockets\u00a0weren\u2019t working, it was sweltering, and the money for materials\u00a0didn\u2019t arrive on time. Perjovschi had to give up on his\u00a0original project (notebooks mounted on flexible rods stuck\u00a0into the floor) and draw directly on the floor with markers.\u00a0He split the surface into about 2,000 squares and made a\u00a0drawing in each one: everything he had in his notebooks,\u00a0all the drawings from 22, all the illustrations from the two\u00a0books he had done with a Romanian writer called Horia-Roman Patapievici \u2013 every image repeated at least two times,\u00a0plus drawings he made up on the spot. The authorities who\u00a0didn\u2019t get the money to him on time helped him be \u201cmuch\u00a0cooler,\u201d Perjovschi says. Instead of being a classic art show,\u00a0his project made the visitors responsible: they would step on\u00a0the drawings and erase them. \u201cI let myself be erased and that\u00a0impressed everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone that mattered saw Perjovschi\u2019s project in 1999 in\u00a0Venice. The effects were visible a few years later. In 2001 he\u00a0was invited in a biennale in G\u00f6teborg; in 2003 he was given\u00a0a huge space in a mine in Essen, Germany; in 2005 he did a\u00a0show in K\u00f6ln\u2019s Ludwig Museum and was nominated for several\u00a0important art prizes.<\/p>\n

Hou Hanru, a Chinese curator and critic who discovered\u00a0Perjovschi\u2019s work in Venice and later included him in his
\nGlobal Figures program at the San Francisco Art Institute in\u00a02010, says he gives \u201cpersonal and pungent\u201d answers to the issues of globalization and geopolitical conflicts, \u201cwith all the\u00a0sense of humor and political sensibility of someone coming\u00a0from the background of social-political transition of Eastern\u00a0Europe.\u201d Also, in a time when everything becomes commercial,\u00a0his \u201cspontaneity, temporality and deep research\u201d are \u201cdefying\u00a0the logic of consumerism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perjovschi\u2019s best year was 2007, when, amongs other\u00a0things, he had a show in New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Arts
\n(MoMA), the most influential museum in the world. Here,\u00a0he was given the Marron atrium \u2013 \u201can abyss where any big\u00a0sculpture seemed like a piece of candy and enormous paintings\u00a0looked like napkins.\u201d \u201cI knew that Dan\u2019s work will look\u00a0impressive in the Atrium, which is the center, or the crux, of\u00a0the Museum,\u201d says Roxana Marcoci, curator of Perjovschi\u2019s\u00a0show What happened to US?. \u201cI was interested in seeing how\u00a0he will handle space on that scale and invited him to do a sitespecific\u00a0project at MoMA. His work was well-suited for the\u00a0international audience of the museum because it addresses\u00a0with biting and discriminating aplomb questions about the\u00a0identity of Eastern Europe in a post-Cold War context, the\u00a0Israeli-Palestine conflict, the power dynamic between the\u00a0United States and the European Union, the rise of China to\u00a0economic power, issues of censorship, and the artist\u2019s position\u00a0in the world. What better place to handle such global issues\u00a0than in New York?\u201d He worked for two weeks, in view of\u00a0the public, and covered the walls with dozens of drawings.\u00a0The videos of him drawing on the walls of MoMA have been\u00a0viewed 50,000 times on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Drawing on the walls started as a necessity for Perjovschi\u00a0(in the 1990s it was difficult to get artwork out of Romania),\u00a0but became part of the artist\u2019s personal brand. He comes, gets\u00a0up on a scaffold, draws and leaves; subsequently the walls are\u00a0painted and the drawings disappear. Perjovschi often plays\u00a0with the making and destruction of his work. In 2006, at Tate\u00a0Modern in London, he drew in chalk and then gave chalk to\u00a0the visitors, who destroyed his drawings by incorporating\u00a0them. That same year, in Budapest, he started drawing at the\u00a0opening of his exhibition. In 2009, in the Michel Rein Gallery\u00a0in Paris, he erased a couple of drawings every day. He doesn\u2019t\u00a0like to see his work get erased, but says he creates idea-drawings:\u00a0the lines are erased but the ideas remain.\u00a0His art is also\u00a0a sort of performance: in the first day, the spotlight is on the\u00a0show, but then it stays on the drawings. The destruction of\u00a0his drawings gives him the freedom to make mistakes, allows\u00a0him to do \u201call sorts of pranks\u201d. \u201cIf I knew my drawing will live\u00a0on forever, it would be harder to draw.\u201d Usually, his art goes\u00a0away faster than the reality it portrays, but for his one project\u00a0that was not painted over, at the Prague Technical Library,\u00a0he struggled to find timeless drawings. \u201cWho knows what a\u00a0laptop will look like 30 years from now?\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

Perjovschi is a hard artist to sell because most of his work is\u00a0erased at the end of his shows. In 2008, he drew with markers\u00a0on the linoleum of a gallery in Berlin and cut out the pieces\u00a0that the visitors wanted to buy. A while ago he also made artwork\u00a0on paper. But his most marketable pieces are his notebooks.\u00a0Some of them have been bought by big museums, others\u00a0are being sold by the four galleries he works with (Michel\u00a0Rein in Paris, Gregor Podnar in Berlin, Helga de Alvear in\u00a0Madrid, and Lombard Freid Projects in New York) and earn\u00a0him a couple of thousand euros each. He also gets a modest\u00a0salary at 22 and fees from the institutions where he has his\u00a0shows. When he works with non-profit entities (or in Romania),\u00a0the organizers only pay for his transport and lodging. In\u00a0over 15 years on the international art scene, Perjovschi hasn\u2019t\u00a0gotten rich. His life is OK, but only because Lia and him don\u2019t\u00a0have any children and have slept for years on mattresses laid\u00a0directly on the floor. (They realized years ago they couldn\u2019t\u00a0have a standard family.) He doesn\u2019t complain because artists\u00a0are \u201cindependent socioeconomic entities\u201d that are not paid by\u00a0the state, but thinks the authorities should at least support\u00a0art with grants and the creation\u00a0of galleries.<\/p>\n

\u25cf<\/p>\n

Today, Perjovschi lives in Romania\u00a0sponsored by the West. He\u00a0didn\u2019t want to leave and use the country only for inspiration.\u00a0He always wanted to be in his country and abroad at the same\u00a0time. In the West, people have noticed him. In Romania, not\u00a0so much. (At one point, he had a show on the national television\u00a0station with Lia; it was cancelled after three months.)\u00a0In 20 years of activity he hasn\u2019t received a single national art\u00a0prize. Instead, he has gotten into feuds with the few contemporary\u00a0art institutions. (He was against the National Museum\u00a0of Contemporary Art being set up in the House of the People,\u00a0the largest building in Europe, designed and nearly completed\u00a0by the Ceau\u015fescu regime as the seat of political and administrative\u00a0power, because he thought it showed that the arts\u00a0were not autonomous from politics.) He was accused of profiting\u00a0from the influence of the Social Dialogue Group, a civic\u00a0society organization that acts as the editor of 22 magazine.\u00a0He has experienced arrogance and envy surrounding him, as\u00a0in 2007, when the only negative review of his show at MoMA\u00a0was written by a Romanian. He has seen people make faces\u00a0when he shows up with a beard, in worn-out jeans and a vest\u00a0with many pockets, although that\u2019s just comfortable for him\u00a0and he doesn\u2019t bother with looks. He has gotten into trouble\u00a0drawing on walls. He was evicted from his studio on account\u00a0of it being \u201cvulnerable to earthquakes\u201d only to see the National\u00a0Arts School, who owned the space, put up an art show there\u00a0shortly after. (Although he worked on the same street as the\u00a0school for years, he has never been invited to teach or even\u00a0speak to the students.)<\/p>\n

But rejection has made him ever more present.<\/p>\n

Over the last few years, he has built a center \u2013 half studio,\u00a0half archive \u2013 in Sibiu and moved all of his documents there\u00a0from Bucharest. In the past year, he has done four projects in\u00a0Romania \u2013 a group exhibition in Satu Mare (in the north), a\u00a0graphic rendering of twenty quotes by the Romanian philosopher\u00a0Emil Cioran, posted in several public places in Bucharest,\u00a0a wall in Sibiu and the one in Craiova. A show at Magma\u00a0Sf\u00e2ntu Gheorghe (Transylvania) was on track for December.<\/p>\n

He has at least two shows, conferences and projects every\u00a0month all over the world (he jokingly says he needs a higher\u00a0\u201edose\u201d every time). For 2012, he has already scheduled six solo\u00a0shows in Europe and the US, five group shows and two catalogues.\u00a0He also schedules breaks in Romania so he can have\u00a0time to think. He spends them either in Sibiu, where his mother\u00a0lives, or in a flat in an ill-famed Bucharest neighborhood.\u00a0He pays his bills, watches TV, drinks coffee in the 22 office,\u00a0talks to young artists and rests in this chaos he calls home,\u00a0where he knows \u201cthe nonsense, the jokes, the mentality,\u201d\u00a0where he lived through \u201cthe big earthquake, the floods, the\u00a0revolution, the mineriade and the total solar eclipse,\u201d where\u00a0he loved, where he got married and where he built a career.<\/p>\n

Perjovschi is in his country and abroad at the same time.\u00a0But in order to make his art, he needs Romania. \u201cIn the West,\u00a0my position as an artist is respected and that gives me comfort,\u201d\u00a0he says. \u201cIn Romania, I fight for it every time and that\u00a0gives me ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2003, when he had the tattoo with the country\u2019s name\u00a0removed by laser, Perjovschi was the same artist, with the
\nsame attitude he had in 1993. But Romania had changed:\u00a0it had broken loose of the mineriade, it was growing and it\u00a0was about to be accepted into the European Union. By then,\u00a0Perjovschi was ready to accept it. The country took a little\u00a0more time, but today seems relieved to have discovered the\u00a0artist has never left it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Perjovschi draws his trademark\u00a0figures on the walls of the world\u2019s\u00a0most important art institutions, but he\u00a0couldn\u2019t do them without Romania. \u25cf Article published in\u00a0DoR Magazine, Winter 2011\/2012. By Irina Cri\u0219an It\u2019s a cold October morning and Dan\u00a0Perjovschi, the most internationally-\u00a0renowned living Romanian\u00a0artist, is getting ready to begin his\u00a0second day of drawing on a wall in\u00a0Craiova, … Continue reading Dan Perjovschi: Vanishing Points<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1283,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[38,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1281"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2993,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281\/revisions\/2993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}