Accidents, Mutation and Mistakes, ceramic works by Liliana Basarab, 2008

Text by Mihaela Varzari, published with ilovebucharest.blogspot.co.uk, Bucharest, 2010 (http://ilovebucharest.blogspot.com/2010/04/accidente-mutatii-si-greseli.html)

  

Family Connection, 2008, courtesy the artist  

Different Teams, 2008, courtesy the artist

In our western culture a tripartite installation is never innocent of the loaded symbolism to do with the family unit, Christianity or the idea of perfection served to us via classical symmetry. Visual artist Liliana Basarab does not shy away from using the canon to its imminent exhaustion. The three ceramic based sculptures titled Different Teams, Family Connection and Untitled (Pregnant bottles) examine with wit and energy the impotency and frustration of familial, thus inescapable relations. Crippled representations such as shoes, bottles, football players all suffer from the uncanny, for having gone through severe modifications. The narrative starts with the pregnant bottles which, due to their maternal qualities make possible the appearance of a perverted, dysfunctional family where mother, father and baby are interlinked through the continuous rear straps of the sandals while the brothers share one leg with catastrophic consequences for their football game. Oppression of and futility at one’s action due to strict social interconnections create the imagine of a doomed family with no future prospects.  Liliana Basarab's incorporation of the unexpected - a product of readdressing the need for representation in western culture - becomes particularly important here.  

Untitled (Pregnant bottles), 2008, courtesy the artist

Galeria MORA and Liliana BASARAB presents Accidents, Mutation and Mistakes ceramic works.

Private view: Friday, April 16, 19H00

The exhibition remains open until May 6 Monday-Friday 11H00-17H00 by appointment at 021 3165541

Liliana BASARAB (born 1979), visual artist, lives and works in Iasi, Romania. In 2005-2006, she participated in the residency programme of the Pavillon / Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.