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An edgy selection library of exciting art, not necessarily useful objects, expansive thinking, and not necessarily prominent experiences. We aim to create a psychologically safe enhancing environment for artistic acts and the manifestation of virtu. Our mission intends to become anything but yet another art gallery space. In times when the present least favours the past, we stopped looking back for symptoms stating the future. Thus, we can’t be very precise, nor too serious profound, but genially curating plausible experiences, both material and immaterial, generated by emerging and established content creators of today. This content should serve as an almost indispensable reference for anyone listing to fetch a relevant summary overview of the least most edgy strokes in South Eastern contemporary art.

And thank you for asking. It was fun.

noun
stra·​tum | \ ˈstrā-təm , ˈstra- \
plural strata \ ˈstrā-​tə , ˈstra-​ \

1. a bed or layer artificially made
2. 1. a sheetlike mass of sedimentary rock or earth of one kind lying between beds of other kinds
   2. a region of the sea or atmosphere that is analogous to a stratum of the earth
   3. a layer of tissue
      // deep stratum of the skin
   4. a layer in which archaeological material (such as artifacts, skeletons, and dwelling remains) is found on excavation
3. 1. a part of a historical or sociological series representing a period or a stage of development
   2. a socioeconomic level of society comprising persons of the same or similar status especially with regard to education or culture
4. one of a series of layers, levels, or gradations in an ordered system
   // strata of thought
5. a statistical subpopulation

May 23, 25, 27, 29-30, 2021
for performance hours, please check the schedule below
office@strata-gallery.com | +40743 STRATA

May 23 // How Many Hours to Become Human // 12PM-8PM // 8hrs non stop performance
6240 hours spent in mothers’ womb, from June 24 1996 to March 3 1997

May 25 // How Many Footsteps to Freedom // 9AM-9PM // 12hrs non stop performance
32.250 footsteps from home, in Floresti village, to highschool in Onesti, and back

May 27 // How Many Heartbeats for Art // 7AM-11PM // 16hrs non stop performance
110.820 heartbeats the day he was accepted at Chelsea College of Arts, March 6 2020

May 29-30 // How Many Hours in a Lifetime // 5PM-5PM // 24hrs non stop performance
212.328 hours lived so far, in 24 years

“Life is a life sentence; life is passing time; life is freethinking. I like to use real time; this allows me to live in art time, and to think freely. In your work, sometimes the duration is governed by the limits of your body. But sometimes it’s a set time. How do you decide the duration of a performance?” - Tehching Hsieh

‘How Many Heartbeats in a Footprint’ is a series of 4 durational performances run by Sorin Prodea, which uses vast numbers of repetitive movements to create 4 large paintings. Each number attached to each performance has a specific meaning and is connected to fundamental stages of the artist’s life, from embryonic phase to present moment.

The construction and development of the paintings happen during and through performance, which requires the gradual increase of duration, from 6 to 12, 16, and 24 hours of non-stop gesture.

In order to give work a structure, and to get a sense of control, Sorin will use the Benford law to create a system of chromatic proportion, such as the color gradients. “I do not know what the final pieces will look like, and that’s not important. What matters is the process and the time, the fact that each painting represents a physical result of a physical performance, and a visual representation of a set of numbers with a significant meaning to me.”

Sorin Prodea is a young emerging multidisciplinary artist, based in Bucharest, Romania, with a special interest in performative practices.

Sorin Prodea
Correspondences | 2019
durational performance

March 11 - May 11, 2021
Monday - Friday | 2PM - 8PM
by appointment | office@strata-gallery.com | +40743 STRATA

“Since the tubes of paint used by the artist are manufactured and ready made products we must conclude that all the paintings in the world are ‘readymades aided’ and also works of assemblage.” – Marcel Duchamp

ALLreadymade is about things that are all ready there, about things that have probably been already done, about all these and probably about something already more - something else. A word game that has its origins in the avant-garde phrase - "readymade", those ready- made series objects exhibited by artists per se and which, once recontextualized, acquires artistic values and new meanings.

Darie Dup's exhibition should be seen as a continuity of such artistic approaches, as long as the object represents the center of his art works ensemble - both the common object, and the one created by the artist in the most unique poses and images. However, there’s more to point towards the complexity of Darie Dup’s experiment, as the artist not only recycles, but also investigates and deciphers the purpose and the meaning of objects. His art is not a mere manifesto addressed to erase the line between art and life, but aims at the search for the concept, the idea beyond the predictability of appearances.

Somewhat paradoxically, trying to avoid the real as an imitation, or the too obvious narration, through the infusion of concrete, he returns back there. The same perspective should be ascribed to the artist's concern for the human body, more precisely for the anatomical fragments which appear in various forms and circumstances in his works: from fetishistic doll heads, to oversized ears, from the invective-index-fingers, to naïve pseudo- kits of limbs and organs. Otherwise, fragmentation as an attitude and remixing as a strategy is an approach that can be spotted in all of Dup's works, old and new, two-dimensional or sculptural. Then there is color - an essential element in Darie Dup's artistic economy, which we find, exhilarated, in all of his projects.

ALLreadymade is an assumed fragmentary course showcasing the most important art works and work manners approached by the artist in recent years, a multifarious but equally coherent selection of works of sculpture, object, painting, digital print, or in situ installation. Just as always, we detect in Darie Dup’s artistic endeavor that strong personal touch, an intelligent and visionary approach, a mature attitude, always somehow familiar, always somehow surprising.

Horea Avram

Darie Dup
Pink Fetish | 2020
non-toxic resin sculpture

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STRATA Gallery

Parangului 76
Bucharest 012328
Romania

office@strata-gallery.com
+40743 STRATA