Republic of Moldova- Identity Flavour

In Case of War (2017) by Ciprian Antoci

Centuries later, in 1812, following the Russian-Turkish peace treaty of Bucharest, the eastern part of Moldavia located between the Prut and Dniester rivers, known as Bessarabia at that time (now the Republic of Moldova), was annexed to the tsarist empire and would be a Russian province until 1918. To no avail, the protests of the Romanians (at that time a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire) for the loss of what was considered, according to Scarlat Callimachi, ruler of the Principality of Moldavia in 1812, “the richest, best part of the whole body and the heart of the country, source of water for livestock, covered with fields of wheat and barley.”

Cloud 1 (2017) by Luminița Mihailicenco

For the great poet Grigore Vieru, who died following a car accident in 2009 (President Vladimir Voronin proclaimed a day of national mourning for his funeral), language, just like the themes of the home, family and roots, is identified in the symbols of bread and the sacred mother, omnipresent in Moldovan poetry. When asked about what love for his mother, to whom he dedicated many poems, meant to him, Grigore Vieru explained: “It is the dignity of your parents’ house, of the place where you were born, stability, language ‒ everything. He who does not have a mother has nothing. The oldest book in the world is the mother; the most beautiful book in the world is the mother.”

Interdependence (2017) by Liudmila Tihonciuc

For visitors from all over the world, however, the Republic of Moldova remains a small, mysterious and unexplored borderland, full of ancient memories, fortresses and monasteries. A few dozen kilometres from the capital Chişinău lies the archaeological complex of Orheiul Vechi (Old Orhei), an authentic open-air museum, and the village of Butuceni, where the houses and buildings looking onto the street are painted varying shades of blue, or sometimes green. There are impressive fortresses along the right bank of the river Dniester, built in the Middle Ages to defend the territory lying between the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube River. The fortress of Soroca was part of Moldova’s complex system of defence and dates back to 1499 when an early wooden square fortification was built, transformed in 1543 into an imposing and harmonious stone castle. Here the Moldavian and Russian armies halted the advance of Turkish troops in 1711, and legend has it that during a long siege of the Tartars, a white stork brought grapes to the defenders to relieve their thirst and hunger.

The Path (2017) by Mihail Lazari

The artistic tradition of the country also has religious origins, attested to in the Icone della Bessarabia exhibition that was held in Florence, at Palazzo Panciatichi, in 2014: the exhibition comprised a collection of fifteen icons which, for the first time, travelled beyond the national borders of Moldova, from their home at the National Art Museum in Chişinău, to open a dialogue with Western culture. The works, painted in the ateliers of monasteries by monks or by popular masters under the guidance of the ecclesiastics, span a period of three hundred years, from the 17th to the 19th centuries, and represent a concise vision of the development of iconographic art in the Moldova region, influenced by the millenary culture of Byzantine art.

Infinity 1 (2017) by Tudor Fabian

Today, according to Chişinău artist Tatiana Fiodorova, contemporary art in Moldova has fallen behind. This can be attributed, in particular, to the education system, shaped in the Soviet era. There is little in the way of available infrastructure, and an insufficient demand for contemporary art. But all this “can be considered as a positive feature, since it is not commercialised and art exists in its purest form. Almost thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, contemporary Moldovan art is still marginal and Moldovan society itself has little knowledge of its existence. Nevertheless it exists! That I can say for sure”.

Yellow Splinters of the Sun (2017) by Pavel Brăila

And Imago Mundi can confirm it, with this compelling and fresh selection of 144 works in the 10x12 cm format by 72 Moldovan artists. “Artists coming from different generations and of various ages, with diverse approaches”, as Lilia Dragneva, Director of the Center for Contemporary Art KSA:K in Chişinău, writes in her introduction to this catalogue. “We have included in this selection artists belonging to the ‘proto’ generation, some of those who have laid the foundations for the local contemporary art process, alongside young artists, who are rapidly and intensively growing. Many artists have emigrated and settled abroad in Romania, Russia, Poland, Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United States, and, although many representatives of the young generation are studying and developing their careers abroad, yet we are convinced that they will continue to represent the Republic of Moldova, regardless of where they will be operating from.”