Mureşan, Ciprian: Communism Never Happened (2006)

The critical activity of the Romanian artist living in Cluj Napoca is directed at describing the condition of post-communist Romania with the aid of sketch-like drawings, videos, transformable installations. As an editorial member of the neo-Marxist and post-structuralist journal IDEA, Mureşan is an active participant of a small, radical theoretical workshop, which has assumed a significant role in the consolidation of the critical intelligentsia and the critical assessment of the period of democratic transition. The raw material for his work Communism Never Happened is the voice recording of the big mass events of the Ceauşescu-period, the “Singing Romania” propaganda gala evenings. The letters cut out from black vinyl records form a statement that, beyond being provocative with the absurdity of denying a historical fact, demands the examination of the ideology. The Romanian totalitarian regime appropriated the codename of an – entirely different – social-economic system, of which there is no empirical experience to date, there cannot be, as it was never realized. Ciprian Mureşan’s work is directed not only at the deconstruction of the past, but also at the prospective realization of the ideologies projected into the future. (Emese Kürti)