Lot 5: Untitled

Marieta Chirulescu (B. 1974) Untitled signed, titled and dated 'Untitled, 2009 M. Chirulescu' (on the reverse) oil and photocopy on canvas 19¾ x 13¾ in. (50.2 x 34.9 cm.) Executed in 2009

50.2 x 34.9 cm.

Clifton Benevento, New York. Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Simultaneously minimal and deeply personal, Marieta Chirulescu’s Untitled, 2009, documents both the process of its own creation as well as the artist’s own biography. Seamlessly blending a monochromatic palette and formal ordering with archival imagery, Chirulescu imbues a poetic charge into her work which challenges pre-conceived notions of the limits of abstraction. Incorporating photographs taken by her and her family, as well as newspapers and magazines documenting the political milieu during the Romanian dictatorship, Chirulescu’s reproduces this imagery through various contemporary technologies to the point of total abstraction. Employing reprographic techniques in combination, the artist photocopies and scans old photographs in order to highlight the texture and surface of these artifacts. In doing so, the irregularities become formal gestures; the subtleties of surface make the past evident. In Untitled, the striations of diaphanous grey pigment of the central frame become the subject matter of this abstract composition, highlighting the delicate creases and grain. A record of the scanning process, a rigid grid layered behind this, capturing a moment of stasis. Perpetually blurring the line between the artist’s intent and technological will, Chirulescu’s variegated monochrome remains subjective, delicate, and intrinsically personal