In the Natural Landscape the Human is an Intruder (Vlad Nancă) by Adriana Bicazan

Landscape, space, silence, human, rationality...these are a few keywords that you could use to describe artist Vlad Nancă’s exhibition at the SABOT art gallery in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The exhibition – which was on display between March 30^th and May 12^th - took the public by surprise with its diversity as it included installations of photography, mosaics, as well as sculptures.

Vlad Nancă studied photography and video at the University of Arts in Bucharest, which deeply influenced him. His documenting of the urban environment symbolises this influence, with him using the many forms of art that I have previously mentioned.

The exhibition explores some of the less conspicuous aspects of Modernism in the 20^th century. In one half of the gallery, the artist is presenting an imaginary world, populated with installations in the shape of long figures made out of welded iron, painted black. The aesthetics of this exhibition is clearly showing a preference towards minimalism, with the figures and signs having a very contemporary feeling. When you first enter into the room, full of his art, you can feel the aspects of pop culture, primitive art, and mythology which Nancă is succeeding at portraying all at the same time. The symbols hung on the wall facing the entrance have a very mystical feeling, yet at the same time are reminiscent of the current generation due to geometrical signs becoming a very popular trend in the past years - they are used as patterns for clothes, tattoos and in other design projects.

In the second part of the gallery, the feeling of modernist aesthetic is even stronger, despite it not being clear at a first glance. The aspects of the present-day are, at first, shrouded as you become distracted by the intriguing, colourful mosaics with geometrical or spatial motifs. This modernist sensation is being deeply accentuated by a wall full of plants, strategically placed as if they were a part of a design show. Rationalistic and artificial sounds conquer the silence of the exhibition. In this space, you truly feel like a disturber of the peace - an intruder in the natural world.

One of the best of Nancă’s installations is the constantly rotating anthropoid forms. This is due to the fact that these humans, which are barely humanoid, give you the strong feeling that they are lost in this landscape. They seem to be directly communicating with the geometrical signs from the wall, giving you the strong feeling that they are familiar, yet they are still mystical. Another section that sparked my attention was the golden and silver Murano mosaic plastered on medium-density fibreboard named “Colonisation of the space”. This is because it is a hypnotic piece, representing a ship-like form ready to set sail into very mystical, almost divine space.

Vlad Nancă is an artist who created the proper setting and mood with his artworks, hence convincing the public to really feel like an intruder in the gallery space. Each piece of artwork was able to communicate his ideas and was very well executed in the manner of a truly contemporary artist, being able to gather together so many different art forms in one exhibition. The young artist is definitely on the right track, being able to be so versatile and flexible in his artworks.