Martin Emilian Balint

EMBRACE - coming soon

2011-05-13T23:55:00.002+03:00

Sweet Suite - in the yard (Larnaka Medieval Castle) part II

2011-04-03T18:58:00.001+03:00

Sweet Suite
by Martin-Emilian Balint
2011

offset print on laminated cardboard
15.000 pieces
variable dimensions

BRIDE - A Portable Royal-Palace
curated by Gloria Vallese
Larnaka Medieval Castle
Larnaka, Cyprus
26 March - 17 April 2011

CREAM - Creativity and Research in Arts and Media
Larnaka Municipality

Sweet Suite - in the yard (Larnaka Medieval Castle) part I

2011-04-03T18:48:00.003+03:00

Sweet Suite - on the walls (Larnaka Medieval Castle)

2011-04-03T18:37:00.003+03:00

Sweet Suite - in the museum (Larnaka Medieval Castle)

2011-04-03T18:18:00.006+03:00

Sweet Suite within BRIDE, A Portable Royal-Palace

2011-03-30T10:16:00.002+03:00

Hybridisation (black marker and Barbie's horse) II

2011-01-18T00:02:00.003+02:00

digital photograph
2011

Hybridisation (black marker and Barbie's horse)

2011-01-17T23:59:00.004+02:00

digital photograph
2011

Sensing / Intuition

2011-01-15T12:45:00.010+02:00

The video is a constraining exercise of perception. The scenes are conceived to induce the intuition-oriented viewers to watch them as sensing persons would do. On the other hand, the sensing-oriented viewers are induced to watch the video in an intuitive way. The purpose of the video is to redirect the natural way of perception, so that the viewers can have an opposite visual perspective.

digital video on DVD
4'45'' (continuous loop)
2011

SPACE PARK (deportation is where you relocate your mind)

2010-11-28T22:13:00.007+02:00

SPACE PARK (deportation is where you relocate your mind)

Another city over Bucharest, imperceptibly formed aloof from the palpable daily life. Based on physical balance, and primal principles. Where tv antennas become quartering islands. Where cables are paths. Living for surviving inside an opaque and dense aerial dimension. Anatomically inert. A hermetic structure with sounds coming from below.

SPACE PARK displays superposed climates inside a city, where the human-built upper structures have other meanings for the cohabitant species. The video intends to catch the boundaries between the physical condition and the psychological implications. The motion is seen as body relocation, and because the video is perceptibly static and austere, the same motion is mentally seen as deportation.

digital video

06:29

2010

HOW TO BE WEIGHTLESS DURING A BATH

2010-09-27T22:12:00.002+03:00

digital photograph
2010

CUM II

2010-07-28T20:24:00.001+03:00

CUM II
digital print
cm 50x50

cum

2010-07-14T23:23:00.003+03:00

digital print
cm 50x50
2010

Every trained mincemeat midget has daily good habits

2010-07-13T00:46:00.002+03:00

digital photograph
cm 29x42
2010

MINCEMEAT MAN RETURNS

2010-07-08T02:15:00.003+03:00

digital photography
cm 42x29
2010

D***HEAD

2010-07-05T01:03:00.003+03:00

digital photograph
cm 29x42
2010

Melting more than 500 caramel candies under the bed, just for having fun after a boring funeral

2010-07-04T22:03:00.005+03:00

digital photograph
cm 29x42
2010

during 11:11

2010-07-02T00:03:00.002+03:00

digital photograph
cm 29 x 42
2010

LIFE PROOF LIMITATION

2010-06-30T00:35:00.002+03:00

digital photograph
cm 29 x 42
2010

NATURAL BORN DISCOMFORT

2010-06-14T22:36:00.001+03:00

drawing on digital photograph
2010

NEUTRAL DENSITY

2010-06-12T04:27:00.002+03:00

drawing on digital photograph
2010

EL SILENCIO CATALANO

2010-06-07T22:42:00.005+03:00

One afternoon you asked me if I wanted to blindfold myself for the whole day. I answered to you I usually prefer the silence, not the darkness. The same afternoon you told me I was a coward. After a while I started to bark like a Catalan homeless dog. You didn’t say anything to me anymore. Instead, you blindfolded yourself and you watched me how I suddenly became more human.

digital photograph with an yet undecided size.
2010

parabolic flock

2010-05-30T20:39:00.003+03:00

in collaboration with Georgeta Ionescu
digital photograph
24x48 cm
2010

SENTIMENTAL RELOCATIONS, LOGICAL REPLACEMENT

2010-04-12T12:31:00.003+03:00

tryptich, 2010
b/w digital photography

THE CREAM SOCIETY CATALOGUE

2009-11-15T18:10:00.015+02:00

Finally I have the official printed catalogue of the exhibition in pdf format. Please, enjoy it.

the cream society catalogue -

SUN BEING - MAKING OF

2009-10-28T21:58:00.008+02:00

Today I received these three photographs from Gloria Vallese, who took them during the making of Sun Being, inside the gallery of Fondazione La Fornace dell'Inovazione (Asolo TV - Italy). These three images are very precious for me, because they represent somehow those beautiful days in which we struggled with the 105 kusudama asteroids of Sun Being. Gloria co-curated the Cream Society exhibition, as well as other CREAM (Creativity and Research in Arts and Media) shows. I hope you will enjoy these pictures, as much as I do.

The Cream Society CATALOGUE

2009-10-27T15:34:00.003+02:00

I have great news. The catalogue of The Cream Society Exhibition is almost ready to be printed, and handout during the The Cream Society Finissage on 1th November.
For now I have a new photograph of Sun Being shot and used for the catalogue.

SEROXCULT review on THE CREAM SOCIETY

2009-10-19T14:47:00.005+03:00

There is a new review on The Cream Society exhibition. This time on Seroxcult. Unfortunately the review has only an italian version. To visit the seroxcult article, please click on the post title, or here.

THE CREAM SOCIETY on EXIBART.COM

2009-10-12T15:48:00.003+03:00

I am glad to announce the review of The Cream Society exhibition, written by Gianluca d’Incà Levis, and published on Exibart.com. To read the full article, just click on the post title, or here. (the article is written in italian)

Sun Being - images from the exhibition

2009-10-05T12:03:00.002+03:00

Sun Being
paper, nylon wire
variable dimensions
2009

Sun Being - other images from the exhibition

2009-10-04T12:12:00.000+03:00

Sun Being
paper, nylon wire
variable dimensions
2009

THE CREAM SOCIETY

2009-09-02T10:56:00.003+03:00

I am honored to invite you at my next CREAM exhibition, entitled THE CREAM SOCIETY. It will take place at Fondazione La Fornace dell`Innovazione, beetwen 3rd october - 1st november 2009. The exhibition is curated by Gloria Vallese and Carlo Sala. I will participate with a brand new installation - Sun Being, made of 2500 modular origami. For more information about the show, please read the invitation. Soon I will post more details about the event and about Sun Being.

SUN BEING

2009-07-23T11:30:00.005+03:00

Sun being
200 red icosahedron kusudamas (after a Tomoko Fuse model) made of 30 pieces each.
2009

CREAM MADNESS IN PARADISE

2009-07-15T15:28:00.003+03:00

I have the pleasure to announce you, afterwards, the Cream Madness in Paradise, a unique Cream happening party that took place in INPARADISO - Venice, Italy. You can find more about this event here:
INPARADISO
EXIBART
VENEZIASI

SACRA ORGIA

2009-01-05T00:23:00.023+02:00

Sacra Orgia is an installation structured as a triptych of video panels. The installation consists of an absconding ritual that is gradually revealed. The rhythm and repetition that the visuals impose since the beginning raise issues related to the choreographic and ceremonial character of the content.

excerpt of the installation (edited view)

Nine people sit in a circle and participate in an erotic game. The parameters that govern the game are not perceived from the beginning and they do not play a narrative role. However, they have a determinative logic in the symbolic ending of the video. The concept deals with the role of repetition in losing the meaning of what is perceived. These nine people kiss in a chain as if they are transmitting, from one person to the other, a sacred element. The actual kiss, obsessively repeated in a circle, becomes a ceremonial gesture and loses its erotic identity.

The game begins with the first person that starts kissing the participant on her right. After the kiss is consumed, the second person turns right and kisses the next person. The kiss travels without interruption and every time it completes a circle a person leaves the game in the start order. The ritual continues until there is only one participant left.

The central display shows the path of the kiss. The two lateral screens show frontal images of the two people kissing at any given moment. Thus the viewer observes the kiss through close ups that do not reveal the players' identity while the side panels offer him or her mug shot like images of the two. The ending is abrupt and dry. The camera closes on the lips of the last participant who ends the ritual, lacking someone to kiss. [Can he kiss himself on his own lips? Does the kiss have any meaning when he remains alone?]

Like any ritual, the ceremonial structure of this game contains rhythms and repetitions that serve to define individual identity as part of a larger configuration. We are dealing with an abstract mechanism that determines a change in the cerebral status of the individual and prepares it for mass cohesion.

The ritualistic behaviour of Sacra Orgia generates an emotional response with various degrees of intensity. The circular choreography is used to experiment with the idea of transcendence as present in the rituals of various cultures. The conceptual core of the installation is based in a neurological perspective on transcendence. Through this installation I try to investigate the power of a ritual to produce transcendental states of unity. These states invariably arise from the effect that a rhythmic and ritualistic behaviour has on the brain. Rhythm and repetition are elements found in almost any human ritual from the rhythms of Gregorian chants to Polynesian fertility dances.

Sacra Orgia aims to frame a similar mental experience in a different perceptive level, combining sexuality and sacredness in a hybrid symbolic formula.

views of the installation at CROSSBREEDS 09

SACRA ORGIA

video installation

digital video on DVD

00:19:30

2008

SACRA ORGIA at CROSSBREEDS platform 09

2008-12-22T19:38:00.024+02:00

click on the image above for the CROSSBREEDS programme

I am glad to invite you at the festival CROSSBREEDS Platform 09.

Sacra Orgia has been selected for the participation at the festival. For more information, please enter:
www.wuk.at
www.imflieger.net
Also, on the blog you can find a video preview of the installation among some video stills and other information about the concept of the piece. Please click here: 1 - 2

CROSSBREEDS 09
Platform for artistic positions in between
January 14–17, 2009 6 to 11 p.m., WUK Area

Seeing with your hands, going on a camping trip with the Dudes, watching Superlooper at construction, experiencing encounters as vision or as battle, meeting sad men, flirting women, odd pairs and Irma Vep, dance away at Tanz Karaoke, feeling crossings in your own body, and then there's twins and scanners and kisses and vectors and Bobby McFerrin and language training and the rat race and structures of excess and …

CROSSBREEDS is a platform for artistic positions dealing with the interleaving of dance, performance and other art forms, especially with the New Media. Around 35 works mainly by local young artists from the fields of dance, performance, film/video, animation, installation and interactive art offer insights into the diversity of current medial transgressions at various sites of the WUK area.

click on the image above for more details

ORGANIZED VOMIT on TG3

2008-12-08T17:35:00.005+02:00

I am glad to present you the news report of the italian television RAI 3, on the exhibition "IL VUOTO E LE FORME" curated by Anna Caterina Bellati. I have participated at this exhibition with a version of "ORGANIZED VOMIT".
For more information about the piece, please click here.

IL VUOTO E LE FORME on TG3 from martin on Vimeo.

HANDMADE MACRAME CONDOM at ARTE LAGUNA PRIZE

2008-09-18T08:37:00.019+03:00

I am pleased to announce you that Handmade Macrame Condom has been selected for the Art Show of the 3rd International Art Prize "Arte Laguna", alongside other 30 international artists` works.

I am glad to invite you at the vernissage
of the collective exhibitions for the sculpture section that will take place at

Spazi Bomben per la Cultura | Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche
Via Cornarotta 7 | Treviso Italy

Saturday Oct. 4th 2008 at 18.00

for further information, please visit the official website of the event, by clicking here.

IL VUOTO E LE FORME

2008-09-18T08:37:00.018+03:00

I am pleased to invite you to the Il vuoto e le forme - International Exhibition of Sculpture, Installation and Painting at Chiavenna (Italy), curated by Anna Caterina Bellati. I am participating with a revisited version of Organized Vomit.
As soon as possible I will post images of the work.

ANTI LULLING FIELD at CREAM ON MADNESS (within OPEN 11)

2008-09-02T09:09:00.010+03:00

These are some images of my work from the Cream on Madness Show within OPEN 11, organized by Arte Communications at San Servolo Island and Lido of Venice, between 27th August-28th September 2008. My installation is entitled Anti Lulling Field.

Anti Lulling Field
plastic, iron, electric devices, sensor, paint
130 x 525 x 525 cm
2008

The text below is the presentation written by Gloria Vallese, historian of art and curator of CREAM on Madness for Anti Lulling Field:

Anti Lulling Field, hypnotical field of corn poppies larger than life, consists of 1300 red plastic flowers. The aim of this work is to go beyond the usual description of madness, showing how unstable one's relationship with reason and clearness of mind can be. With the approach of the visitor, the flowers in the centre of the little plantation start to sway, producing a feeling similar to the one experienced when one finds himself/ herself in the middle of a high vegetation and perceives some movements in distance, without knowing what caused them. At least for one moment, that unidentifiable entity becomes the cause of an intense and primary fear, which takes us beyond the boundaries of normality. Anti Lulling Field, moreover, allows us to experience a singular game of mirrors: the agent causing the fear (the visitor who releases the movement sensors situated around the corn poppies field), is also the one who experiences its effects.
So may be the case with hallucinations, when we can see things as if they were real, out of us, when they are actually only a product of our mind.

Videoartist, photographer and graphic, Martin Emilian Balint creates intensely original installations in an ironic and paradoxical conceptual vein, in which, however, the idea never prevails on the purely visual, and sensual, pleasure of art. Often these creations are based on an effect of accumulation and repetition. As in Anti-Lulling Field, based on the repetition of the same big stylized red flower, so in the various versions of Alfred Hitchock's Fetish (2003, Museum of Modern Art of Costanta, Romania - with Andreea Cojocaru; 2005, Fondaco Marcello, Venice), spectacular installation which includes in its different versions from 1500 to 2000 origami birds in white paper. Similarly based on a module is The Black Spiral; inspired by the events organized by the Romanian mystical group MISA (Miscarea pentru integrarea spirituala in absolut, or Movement for Spiritual Integration in the Absolute), The Black Spiral includes 100 human-shaped dummies, embraced one to another to compose a huge spiral shape.

Sometimes, the accumulation aims to an ironic effect: as with the 3 km lenght of hand-made macramé lace used to create the sassy, and much perforated, giant condom exhibited at the 90. Group show of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice (Handmade macrame condom, 170 x 60 cm, 2006).

Timeline (One Man Cemetery), exhibited at Open 10 in 2007, consisted in 26 identical modules each representing one year of life of the artist. Each module included a pair of black and white pictures on oval porcelain, depicting the artist once with his eyes open, and once with his eyes closed. The last oval, corresponding to the year started but not yet concluded, had been left white.

reactions at MANIFESTA 7 for my BLUE TOP

2008-09-01T13:03:00.005+03:00

These are two images I just received from Rovereto. It is the AIRSWAP Pavilion within MANIFESTA 7. To see the concept of my intervention for this art show, please look beneath, at the post entitled: BLUE TOP / 100 REPLICAS / 100% COTTON. More images will arrive soon.

CREAM ON E-FLUX

2008-08-21T00:04:00.007+03:00

Take a look at the article about CREAM ON MADNESS within OPEN 11, issued by E-FLUX, by clicking on the image.

TAPIS ROULANT (the way out)

2008-08-03T15:11:00.014+03:00

Tapis Roulant (the way out) is a video based on a mathematical structure. It is organized as a diagram for an abstract algorithm. The video presents six scenes of tube station environments, following the direction of the moving stairways. The scenes are shot like still frames, without any movement of the camera. The image just follows the real rhythm of the stairways, from the entrance to the way out, saving that the viewer cannot see either the start, or the end, because the scene fades in the next one. The first two stairways are descending, while the third one is horizontal. The next and last three stairways are, instead, ascending. The continuous loop of the video creates the sensation of a dull endless path. However, the directions of the moving stairways form a structure of an ascending diagram, which due to the continuous loop is an abstract pattern of escaping to the surface, away from the underground environment. It remains, however, a theoretical process, because the video doesn’t display any conclusive result. You cannot see the way out; even the algorithm of the video shows you how to reach it.

digital video on DVD
00:05:23 (continuous loop)
2007

The Smoke Comes Down Only By Night

2008-07-23T23:03:00.007+03:00

The video presents a blurred nocturnal landscape, somehow mixing urban elements with the artificiality of a controlled nature. It is a still frame focused on a potentially bizarre event: smoke of unknown origin goes down, following its sinuous choreographic dynamics. The aim of the video is to question neither the provenience nor the nature of the smoke, as well its authenticity. The viewer is, therefore, invited to attempt a mental entrance, a dimension of compressed time where the smoke represents, somehow, a strife for continuity in a suspended instant. On another level, the sound of the video is a singular note, repeated pathetically during the length of the unusual scene, to increase the sensation of this frozen moment.

One of my major and frequent interests is to be found in the idea of multiplication, rhythm and repetition, and most of my works are focused on these concepts. This time I wanted an opposite visual experience – a work with a complex emotional intensity, compressed however in a simple gesture. I wanted a hypnotic image that deals anyway with the idea of an obsessive iteration, but with different parameters that change the perception, inhere. There is no emphasis of the repeated module anymore. Instead of, the unpredictable rhythm of the smoke, in the endless loop of the video, symbolizes on the whole the presence of the time continuum with all its cycles.

digital video on dvd
00:03:25
2005-2008

ANTI LULLING FIELD (3D renderings)

2008-06-24T01:41:00.004+03:00

Ongoing project for OPEN 11, within the show of CREAM (Creativity and Research in Arts and Media) in San Servolo Island

Anti Lulling Field, hypnotical field of corn poppies larger than life size, consists of 1312 red plastic flowers. The aim of this work is to go beyond the usual description of madness, showing how unstable one's relationship with reason and clearness of mind can be. With the approach of the visitor, the flowers in the centre of the little plantation start to swish, producing a feeling similar to the one experienced when one finds himself/ herself in the middle of a high vegetation and he/ she distinguishes some movements in distance, without knowing what caused them. At least for one moment, that unidentifiable entity becomes the cause of an intense and primary fear, which takes us beyond the boundaries of normality. Anti Lulling Field, moreover, allows us to experience a singular mirrors' game: the agent causing the fear (the visitor who releases the movement sensors situated around the corn poppies field), is also the one who experiences its effects. So may be the case with hallucinations, when we can see things as if they were real, out of us, when they are actually only a product of our mind.

(Excerpt from: Gloria Vallese, catalogue of the exhibition
CREAM/On madness, held within Open 11, Venice 2008, forthcoming)

1312 plastic corn poppies, movement sensors, iron wires, vibrating mechanism
2008 (It will be installed in the garden of San Servolo Island between 28th August - 28th September)

BLUE TOP / 100 REPLICAS / 100% COTTON

2008-06-22T14:48:00.010+03:00

My intervention for AIRSWAP at MANIFESTA 7

100% cotton toile cuttings, polyester foam, needle and cotton, A6 flyers

2008

BLUE TOP / 100 REPLICAS / 100% COTTON is an intervention for the AIRSWAP Project, within Social Art Praxes at MANIFESTA 7.
Airswap is a proposal about public art intervention, meant to take place in airport zones.
Airswap is based on the participation and sharing between the local creative context, public or private institutions and tourists /travellers taking part to the action.
Its dynamic is based on three main elements: the materials (dresses), swapping of materials between travellers, the changes brought by the creative context where the action takes place.
In the airport, inside the AIRSWAP pavilion, the travellers can see the dresses, which are the result of other travellers swapping and that have already been modified, and they can choose the artefact they prefer, swapping it with a piece of their own. Artists will see and modify the dresses. Once the dresses being modified, they will be put in the swapping process again.
Airswap is a catalyst of processes, a displayer of local creative values, it’s addressed to the international public, it’s about engagement, thought, gift, gratuity, local surplus value and strong emotional relationship.
BLUE TOP / 100 REPLICAS / 100% COTTON is a speculation on the concept of originality in the mass production.
My intervention consists in manufacturing a toile cutting from the original shape of the clothing.
A series of 100 pieces, 100% cotton (front and back), of the same colour as the original Blue Top, is made available in the Airswap Pavilion in order to ask the visitors (travelers) to sew for themselves an authentic copy of it, with needle and cotton thread, they can find below the work.
The difference is that the replica they sew, looses the original characteristics of a clothing, that being its wearability. The original blue top is made of flexible synthetic fabric and the toile cuttings are made of 100% cotton, therefore they do not have the same elasticity to fit a person.
Thus, the visitors have the opportunity to make their own hybrid intervention in textile techniques, within the project`s guidelines, by manufacturing a Blue Top item with a new identity.

THE CAGE OF SALVATION

2008-06-15T15:21:00.004+03:00

I have always been interested in the mutating effects on the structure of the strong ideas.
Consider an object, already implemented in the universal symbology. What happens to it when a change intervenes and determines its perceptive hybridization?
The cross is perhaps the most stereotyped symbol, existing in different cultures, with heterogeneous meanings in terms of conjunctures.
Cage of Salvation aims to obtain a fusion between unconnected symbolic parameters, having as a result a detachment from the religiously blasphemous connotations. The connotations may be perceived apparently juxtaposing the components of the piece.
Here, the cross is backlit with yellow LEDs, in its center has a pair of speakers broadcasting „Pater Noster“, recited by a parrot-like voice; every wing of the cross is a cage with four yellow parrots inside. The piece is suspended like a chandelier in the middle of the gallery, so that the center of the cross is situated at the same level of the visitors` eye sight. The cage of the inferior wing has the bars open, so that its bird could fly around in the gallery space, representing the freewill. The intention of Cage of Salvation is neither to rephrase the meaning of the Christian cross, nor to undeceive it, by conceptually profane interventions, but to interrogate on the transforming capacity of the symbols, in terms of the determinative agents.

white plastic, plexiglass, yellow LEDs, sound, mp3 player, 2 speakers, 4 parrots
cm 120 x 120
2008 - on going project

ADAGIO IN NEON MINOR

2007-09-25T16:01:00.001+03:00

stills from video
2004

TIMELINE (ONE MAN CEMETERY)

2007-09-02T00:52:00.002+03:00

3D rendering of the project

views of the installation from OPEN 10 - international exhibition of sculpture and installation, Venezia-Lido

I had been wondering for some time what would have happened if I took an element which by definition has a multiple, plural sense, and transformed it into a singular entity. One of those things that exist because they represent the community, such as squares or cemeteries, which by definition are places created for more than one person. And, at the same time, I reflected on the precarious nature of things in a determined time line; creature with a short life like moths, that are born in the morning and die in the evening. And so I had the idea of this cemetery for only one person who lives several lives, each only one year long. Then he is born again and dies again... Living just one year , like moths in a day, but several consecutive times. Playing with time; instead of having just one life of I don’t know how many years, being born knowing that each level of life is compressed into the space of only one year. A series of avatars... I wanted this work to be like a funerary monument, with photographs printed on round ceramic plates, just like on real tombstones, with little plaques giving the date of birth and death. The work refers to me. So it is composed of 26 empty wooden boxes (26 years), raised 1.71m above the ground (my height). The boxes are 25cm high (like my head). On one side there is a photograph of me with my eyes open and a small metal plaque with my date of birth, on the other side the same photograph, but with my eyes closed, and the date of death. That is: 1 April 1982 - 31 March 1983 (exactly one year). Then the next life continues on the next box: with the date of birth and the date of death of the following year... and so on up till 2007, where there is only the date of birth but nothing is marked yet for the date of death. The boxes are open on two sides, so that the visitor can look through the aligned boxes and look through the person’s life. From the beginning or from the end.

steel, tego, photographs on ceramic plate, plastic
cm x 1250 x 180 x 40
2007

NARCISSUS WAS A CROCHET MAKER (dyptic)

2007-09-02T00:49:00.001+03:00

lambda print on ceramic plate
2 x cm 20 x 20
2007

ORGANIZED VOMIT or HOW TO COOK A 100% COTTON WEDDING CAKE

2007-09-02T00:41:00.002+03:00

Focusing on the relationship between meaningless visual patterns and the capacity of giving substance to a senseless shape

Have you ever wanted to put your finger inside a cream cake to see what is behind its surface? Have you ever wanted to see the core of something before its cover?
Organized Vomit is an attempt to give a meaning to the surface without a marrow, or perhaps to transform this surface into a flatten core.
Entirely made of 100% white cotton bands, the piece is a soft structure, like a kitschy wedding decoration. It has no contextualized meaning, but one may easily find several analogical connotations of it in his / her mental visual archives. Also, the title arises the same kind of interrogation on the capacity of giving plural formalistic meanings to an apparently abstract pattern.

cotton
cm 150 x 150
2005

RED EDEN

2007-09-02T00:34:00.001+03:00

installed at Southampton Institute for the exhibition "Sweet FA", Southampton UK
yuta, wire net, plaster, vernish
variable dimensions
2004

THE PARAFFIN KIT OF A CROCHET MAKER

2007-09-02T00:28:00.002+03:00

paraffin, macrame thread, crochet tools, rice, glasses
cm x 40 x 30 x 40
2005

THE NEW ORTHODOXY OF THE AIRLESS MORNING

2007-09-02T00:17:00.003+03:00

The new orthodoxy of the airless morning is a site-specific piece, installed at Palazzetto Tito of Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in 2004. A 15m long curtain suspended between the pulled down chandeliers of a Venitian salon. It could be a windblown curtain, but all the windows are closed. The chandeliers are not at the usual height anymore, creating a different perspective of the space. The visitor has a different view of the room, feeling himself/herself much taller than in the other salons of the gallery. A background voice that repeats the same words: “Don’t breathe in here”. It is a request to stop doing even the most natural and automatic things that a person could do, to get focused entirely on this situation. Art absorbing the space, versus The space absorbing art.

nylon curtain, chandeliers, glue, sound
variable dimensions
2005

ALFRED'S FETISH

2007-09-02T00:14:00.003+03:00

installed at Fondaco Marcello for the exhibition "Atelier Aperti - work in progress"

The installation consists of over 1500 birds made of square Xerox paper in origami technique hanged by the ceiling at different lengths.
The action of making origami birds finds its roots in a Japanese tradition, as a form of chasing the evil spirits from someone’s life.
On the other side, the title reminds the cult movie “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock, creating an ironical analogy to its obsesive topic.
In this context, the goal is to hybridize two ideas that use the same symbol with different intellectual purposes, and to draw attention to the resulted multi-layered meaning of their mix.

over 1500 origami birds
variable dimensions
2003 (with ANDREEA COJOCARU)
2005 (revisited version)

MARCHING BOOTS

2007-09-02T00:03:00.002+03:00

a not yet finished version installed at Galleria Radar, Venezia-Mestre

500 paraffin boots lined up in columns. Every boot is 12.5 cm height. A micro-dimensionate march. A very military-like ensemble with invisible high-heeled bodies made by paraffin. The same embroidered motives, the same shape point mainly not to the personal identity’s importance but to the power of multiplied entity. It may be an army’s force but an easily destroyable one. Shapes are delicate speaking of a more domestic environment like burnt-out candles or kitschy ceramic objects. A genderless gesture. The ambiguity prevails:female masculinity vs. male femininity.

500 paraffin boots
variable dimensions
2007

HANDMADE MACRAME CONDOM

2007-09-01T23:50:00.002+03:00

A condom made of 3 km of embroidered thread. Five women separately making a needlework of a mysterious object. Artwork versus handicraft. Phallic symbology mixed with kitschy milieux. Ironically, this prophylactic, which commonly symbolizes sexual protection, here presents a world of repetitive gestures.
The iteration of the same movement becomes a therapy for the mind, while the body remains only a mechanical device.
Handmade macramé condom is the first piece of a series that speaks about transforming the initial meaning of a standard symbol into a complex allegorical language, by using extraneous elements.

installed at Galleria di San Marco of Bevilacqua la Masa Foundation for 90ma Collettiva

macramé thread
cm 170 x 60
2006

SAINT MARTIN, THE ROMANIAN ONE

2007-09-01T23:42:00.001+03:00

lambda print on ceramic plate
cm x 60 x 40
2006

THE GREAT DEMATERIALIZATION OF THE ORNITHOLOGIST (tryptic)

2007-09-01T23:25:00.001+03:00

lambda print on ceramic plate
3 x cm 20 x 20
2006

GENITALS

2007-09-01T23:11:00.002+03:00

lambda print on ceramic plate
5 x cm 15 x 15
2006

JELLOPHOBIA

2007-09-01T22:44:00.001+03:00

with ANDREEA COJOCARU
lambda print on d-bond
5 x cm 30 x 45
2003

SAINT MARTIN SWEATING AND SPITTING MACRAME (dyptic)

2007-09-01T22:31:00.001+03:00

print on ceramic plate
2 x cm 10 x 14
2007

COTTON TRYPTIC

2007-09-01T21:34:00.001+03:00

tryptic
lambda print on plexiglass
2 x cm 14 x 23
1 x cm 14 x 26
2006

MY PERVERT PATRIOTIC POSTCOMUNISM (tryptic)

2007-09-01T21:28:00.002+03:00

lambda print on plexiglass
3 x cm 40 x 60
2006

LIPSTICK EULOGY OR HOW TO KISS A DEAD ANIMAL WITHOUT FEELING DIRTY

2007-09-01T21:03:00.002+03:00

This series of photographs is a work in progress. It consists of self-portraits juxtaposed to images of freshly killed animals. Apparently the images don’t have anything in common. The element that creates the link between the portraits and the dead animals, is the colour of the lipstick which is the same with the colour of the blood. This detail facilitates the narrative. It is a discussion about the impact of strong visual stimuli over the viewer, which aims to provoke an analysis regarding the personal relationship with the idea of death, guilt and morality.

lambda print on d-bond
9 x cm 30 x 60
2005-2007

BALLERINAS

2007-09-01T20:43:00.001+03:00

with ANDREEA COJOCARU
lambda print on d-bond
5 x cm 30 x 50
2003

BLINK ONCE FOR YES, BLINK TWICE FOR NO

2007-09-01T20:38:00.001+03:00

lambda print on plexiglass
3 x cm 40 x 60
2006

SAGRADO CUERPO

2007-09-01T20:06:00.001+03:00

tryptic
lambda print on d-bond
1 x cm 60 x 90
1 x cm 80 x 60
1 x cm 60 x 90
2004-2005

FRAGMENTS DU PAPIER PEINT

2007-06-01T23:45:00.002+03:00

lambda prints on d-bond
10 x cm 30 x 30
2005

Resumé

2006-02-21T01:04:00.000+02:00

Exhibitions

CROSSBREEDS Platform 09
Collective exhibition
WUK (WERKSTATTEN - UND KULTURHAUS)
Wien, Austria
14-17 January 2009

3rd INTERNATIONAL ART PRIZE "ARTE LAGUNA"
Collective exhibition
Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche
Treviso, Italy
4-19 October 2008

IL VUOTO E LE FORME
Curator: Anna Caterina Bellati
Chiavenna (Sondrio), Italy
4-29 October 2008

CREAM on Madness
within OPEN 11
Curator: Paolo de Grandis
Co-curator: Carlotta Scarpa
Curator for CREAM on Madness: Gloria Vallese
San Servolo Island, Italy
27th August 2008 - 28th September 2008

MANIFESTA 7
AIRSWAP
Curator: Arianna Callegaro
Rovereto, Italy
July 2008 - October 2008

OPEN 10
Curator: Gloria Vallese
Venice – Lido, 2007, Italy

“P3Project” - PERFORMATIVE-PAPER-PROJECT - Venice Biennale 2007 (collateral event)
Curators: Emiliano Bazzanella, Max Ceschia, Carlo Damiani, Guglielmo Di Mauro
Venice 2007, Italy

“The brain project” – Palazzo Morpurgo
Trieste 2006-2007, Italy

“90ma Colletiva” – Bevilacqua la Masa Foundation
curator: Angela Vettese
Venice 2006-2007, Italy

“ICZ_VPI2006” – The 10th international architecture exhibition – Venice Biennale 2006
(collateral event)
curators: Carlo Damiani e Studio Eclettica.
Venice 2006, Italy

“Tangenze, arte e moda” - Villa Vecelli Cavriani
Curators: Gloria Vallese e Massimo Anselmi
Verona 2006, Italy

“Ateliers Aperti – work in progress” –Fondaco Marcello Gallery
Curators: Paolo De Grandis and Gloria Vallese in collaboration with Venice Biennale
Venice 2005, Italy

“Ateliers Aperti” – the 51mst International art exhibition- Venice Fine Arts Academy and Venice Biennale
Venice 2005, Italy

“Exit 9, Young and lost” –C-Voltaire ARCI Association
Curator: Carmen Lorenzetti
Bologna 2005, Italy

“Borsisti dell’ 87.ma Collettiva” - Bevilacqua la Masa Foundation
Curators: Stefano Coletto and Marco Ferraris
Venice 2004, Italy

“Sweet FA” – Southampton Institute
Curator: Ron Cowdery
Southampton 2004, UK

“87.ma Collettiva” - Bevilacqua la Masa Foundation
Curator: Angela Vettese
Venice 2003, Italy

“Alfred Hitchcock’s Jellophobia (after the flight of the anorexic ballerinas)”
Museum of Modern Art of Constanta
Constanta 2003, Romania

CONTACT

2006-02-20T20:54:00.013+02:00

THANK YOU FOR CONTACTING ME !

2006-01-20T20:41:00.002+02:00

BEST REGARDS,
Martin-Emilian Balint

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