Installation view. Center front: Apparatus 22, Sex Tape VIII (Atletica Ideal × The Scream by Edvard Munch), 2022, installation (video 4min 59sec, metallic bed, leather sculpture, wooden birds, metallic, wooden and paper elements, TV), edition of 5 + 3 AP in unique variations. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
Installation view. Center front: Apparatus 22, Sex Tape VIII (Atletica Ideal × The Scream by Edvard Munch), 2022, installation (video 4min 59sec, metallic bed, leather sculpture, wooden birds, metallic, wooden and paper elements, TV), edition of 5 + 3 AP in unique variations. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY ON THE PEPPERSIDE OF SUPRAINFINIT works like a chant on many voices conjuring dreams of futurity.
JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY ON THE PEPPERSIDE OF SUPRAINFINIT, installation view. Central: Elisa Sighicelli, Untitled (1632), 2014, photography, pigment print on archival paper mounted on aluminum and 2 nails, 110.5 × 110.5 cm, unique piece, Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY ON THE PEPPERSIDE OF SUPRAINFINIT, installation view. On the right: Elisa Sighicelli, Untitled (1632), 2014, photography, pigment print on archival paper mounted on aluminum and 2 nails, 110.5 × 110.5 cm, unique piece and Alex Horghidan, Untitled (3) and Untitled (4) 2022, from the Polyamory series, graphite on paper, each 35 × 35 cm, each unique. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY ON THE PEPPERSIDE OF SUPRAINFINIT, installation view. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY ON THE PEPPERSIDE OF SUPRAINFINIT, installation view with works by Apparatus 22, Irina Bujor, Ștefan Botez, Sebastian Moldovan and Alex Horghidan. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY ON THE PEPPERSIDE OF SUPRAINFINIT, installation view with works by Apparatus 22, Alex Horghidan, Ioana Nemeș, Ștefan Botez. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
Center: Robert Gabris, INSIDE OUT – REDEFINING THE BODY I AM TEMPORARILY LIVING IN, 2022 / second composition of three drawings, colored pencil on cardboard, 70 × 150 cm, framed. Margins: Sebastian Moldovan, Lend me your ear, 2021 – ongoing, site-specific immersive installation: plastic tubes, mp3 player, paint, music playlist, unique site-specific version in series. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO, Gregor Podnar Gallery, GAEP Gallery Bucharest and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY ON THE PEPPERSIDE OF SUPRAINFINIT, installation view. Center: Irina Bujor, Where does?, 2014, installation (wooden box, sand, sound), 184 × 260 × 190 cm, duration 11min, ed. 1 of 4 unique variations. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY ON THE PEPPERSIDE OF SUPRAINFINIT, installation view with works by Irina Bujor, Ștefan Botez, Apparatus 22. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY ON THE PEPPERSIDE OF SUPRAINFINIT, installation view with works by Ștefan Botez, Sebastian Moldovan, Apparatus 22, Alex Horghidan. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
Even though the exhibition highlights instances of artistic imaginary from Eastern European, cardinal points as we know them are dismissed, only to relocate the process of folding, unfolding and refolding of the future in Pepperside, a geographical realm found in Suprainfinit. Growing slowly in the crushing shadows of trauma, anxiety, ennui, patriarchy and dystopian realities, Suprainfinit—a utopian queer universe imagined since 2015 by the artistic collective Apparatus 22, in which hope is critical and corrosive to the status quo—becomes a pretext for empowering trajectories of joy, for exciting new possibilities for techno-science and introspection into dreams of happiness.
Lifted from Where does? (2014), an arresting installation of Irina Bujor about laughter in collective contexts, the exhibition’s incantation JOY ~ JOY ~ JOY is neither an imperative, nor a (naive) escapist outlook of an endless stream of ecstasy.
In order to modulate pluralistic future(s) as a collective effort, the works in the exhibition are not just looking at phenomena related to joys, pleasures, utopia but rather through those, thus becoming instances of embodiment. In-betweenness is a key approach for grafting the present sometimes with wild speculations, other times with nonhuman sensibilities or proposals for erasing signs of a heavy past. This in-betweenness is visible also in the display: an abundant selection of works is meandering between the gallery rooms — and inside the painted passageways between them, akin to a vessel for multiplicity, necessary eclecticism and expanding transformations.
Center: Barbora Kleinhamplová in collaboration with Mistress Velvet, Irresistible, 2021, 4K video, 20min 12sec, edition of 5 + AP. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
KILOBASE BUCHAREST, Title for an Exhibition, 2021, installation (2 LED displays 100 × 20 cm, text, paint, site specific iteration), duration 2 min / loop, ed. 1 of 15 + 2 AP. Installation view, WONNERTH DEJACO, Vienna 2022. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
Apparatus 22, “… / … ”, from the HAVE YOU REALLY SEEN THE EXHIBITION? Series, 2019–ongoing, vintage dossier A4 size, sunglasses, hand-written text, plastic, Apparatus 22 dry seal impression. Installation view, WONNERTH DEJACO, Vienna 2022. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
Alex Horghidan, Untitled (3), 2020, from the Polyamory series, graphite on paper, 35 × 35 cm, unique. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artist
Sebastian Moldovan, Lend me your ear, 2021 – ongoing (detail), site-specific immersive installation: plastic tubes, mp3 player, paint, music playlist, unique site-specific version in series. Installation view. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO, GAEP Gallery Bucharest and the artist. Photo: Peter Mochi
Irina Bujor, SHIELD no.6 (FROM BRUISES…TO GOOD WILL), 2022, from the SHIELDS series, 2019–ongoing, sound installation (various textiles, soft copper tube, headphones, antihomophobia sports medal by MozaiQ), 140 × 102 × 5 cm, duration: 54sec (loop). Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artist. Photo: Peter Mochi
Irina Bujor, SHIELD no.6 (FROM BRUISES…TO GOOD WILL), 2022, from the SHIELDS series, 2019–ongoing, sound installation (various textiles, soft copper tube, headphones, antihomophobia sports medal by MozaiQ), 140 × 102 × 5 cm, duration: 54sec (loop). Installation view. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artist. Photo: Peter Mochi
Anatoly Belov Sex, Medicated, Rock-n-Roll, 2012 HD 16:09, color, sound, 10 min 42 sec Installation view. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artist. Photo: Peter Mochi
Advancing through the deep mist of futures, one would stumble into reservoirs of joy by accident. Fraught with the danger of the illusory, it is yet a transformative act: from the animism of ultra-fragile Shields (in drag) protecting operatic wishes for transgender communities (Irina Bujor) to arousal ~ tranquility ~ future nostalgia in rural queer utopias (Alex Horghidan); from the sharp hybridization of myth, art history and dreams of techno-body (Ștefan Botez) to plunges in moments when clubbing proves to be space not only for euphoria, but for freedom (Apparatus 22); from rituals for “emotional reparations” performed by Mistress Velvet (Barbora Kleinhamplová) to subverting into poetry some readymades used for selling paints and dreams (Ioana Nemeș); from an afterimage of a new order (Elisa Sighicelli) to processes of becoming fluid, new types of bodies (Robert Gabris) or to a musical daydream challenging patriarchal structures (Anatoly Belov); from the playfulness and defiance of laughter in community settings (Irina Bujor) to support systems marking the dissolution of the boundaries between interior ~ exterior ~ invisible, pragmatic ~ poetic ~ hierarchical (Sebastian Moldovan).
While feeding on perspectives originating mostly in Eastern Europe, the works included in the exhibition suggest an intense fluidity of artistic cosmologies and entanglements of thinking, imagining, speculating— well beyond the confines of a broader region that is simultaneously troubled ~ fascinating ~ puzzling. This collectively laid out future, switched in parallel by the group of presented artists — and the corresponding joys one could trace back into a distant projection that’s yet inextricably informed by what is already revealed in our perception — thus becomes a practice session of sorts for everyone finding themselves facing the works; it is an open invitation to partake, to let oneself get carried away towards / through the Pepperside, while never losing out of sight the very causes and incentives that make such encounters possible.
installation view. Works by (from left): Apparatus 22, Alex Horghidan, Sebastian Moldovan. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
Irina Bujor, SHIELD no.18 (NOT ONLY THE GENITALS), 2022, from the SHIELDS series, 2019–ongoing, sound installation (velvet, lace, soft copper tube, headphones), 245 × 204 × 10 cm, duration: 30s in loop, unique. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artist. Photo: Peter Mochi
Ștefan Botez, various titles, 2022, from the GOLEMS series, pencil on 200g/m² paper, each 29.7 x 42 cm, framed, Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artist. Photo: Peter Mochi
Sebastian Moldovan, Lend me your ear, 2021 – ongoing, site-specific immersive installation: plastic tubes, mp3 player, paint, music playlist, unique site-specific version in series. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO, GAEP Gallery Bucharest and the artist. Photo: Peter Mochi
Center: Apparatus 22, Above and Beyond series, including the works: The Veil / Darkness / Polyhappiness, all 2019, acrylic intervention on digital print on textile, 160 × 107 cm each, edition 1 of 3 + 3AP. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO; Gallleriapiù, Bologna; Galeria Suprainfinit, Bucharest; and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
Left: Sebastian Moldovan, Lend me your ear, 2021 – ongoing, site-specific immersive installation: plastic tubes, mp3 player, paint, music playlist, unique site-specific version in series. Right: Alex Horghidan, Untitled (1) / Untitled (2), 2020, from the Polyamory series, graphite on paper, each 35 × 35 cm, unique. Courtesy of the artists, GAEP Gallery Bucharest and Family Servais Collection. Photo: Peter Mochi
Ioana Nemeș, Untitled, 2011, series of 5 collages, assembled based on the artist’s diary 33 × 24.5 cm each. Installation view. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO, KILOBASE BUCHAREST and Ioana Nemeș Archive. Photo: Peter Mochi
Installation view. Center front: Apparatus 22, Sex Tape VIII (Atletica Ideal × The Scream by Edvard Munch), 2022, installation (video 4min 59sec, metallic bed, leather sculpture, wooden birds, metallic, wooden and paper elements, TV), edition of 5 + 3 AP in unique variations. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
Apparatus 22, Sex Tape VIII (Atletica Ideal × The Scream by Edvard Munch), 2022 (detail), installation (video 4min 59sec, metallic bed, leather sculpture, wooden birds, metallic, wooden and paper elements, TV), edition of 5 + 3 AP in unique variations. Courtesy WONNERTH DEJACO and the artists. Photo: Peter Mochi
