Enter Banality

ENTER BANALITY

Constantin Badea

14-24.2.2017

The opening of ODD’s annual program features a presentation of the unusual work of Constantin Badea. It functions as a prelude to a year-long unfolding of themes related to privacy and private life, tackling many of these from a very singular, almost idiosyncratic perspective.

A self-taught artist living in a village in Argeș, Constantin dedicates all his effort to understanding and making art. His main goals are: to express reality; to explore the beneficial role of art in the life of man; to speak about himself – the way in which he sees life, his ideas, experiences past and present.

ODD commissioned him a series of drawings on the topic of art & spirituality. They are displayed in a frieze along the walls of our space. There is a copy [in Romanian] of the email exchanges prior to the commission displayed on a wall, in which the artist explains his take on the subject and part of the iconography.

The title comes from one of the works on display, Real banality vs. apparent banality. It is perhaps the best account of both the artist’s démarche and of the connection between him and ODD: approaching the world with realism and imagination, always asking the banal questions which people no longer see.

All photos by Petre Fall.