One Vampire, One Dictator and the Color Gray : Conditions for Contemporary Romanian Art Before and After 1989

The conditions for art in Romania have gone through big changes since the collapse of the regime in December of 1989. Under the Communist regime the artists had to work within a dualistic system completely unlike the one that developed in the West during the same period. Similar to the other countries of the former Eastern block, the communist Romanian state had understood the great potential that art has as a form of propaganda. Thus the regime secured full control over the art that would be allowed into the public space. In response to the confines set on the artistic expressions, a non-official art began to develop alongside the official art of the state. These two layers of Romanian art history were dissolved when Ceausescu’s regime finally came to an end in 1989. The underground art was suddenly available to an audience, while the official art was discredited. Out of the chaos that followed, a new Romanian art was born. During the 1990’s many Romanian artists started to process the past to try to understand their present situation, while others investigated Romanian identity as perceived from the outside. The main focus of this paper has been to look at the conditions for contemporary Romanian art under Communism, and how they have changed since 1989. My research has been based on literature such as The History of the Romanian People (1970), Primary Documents (2002) and Actionism in Romania during the Commuinist Era (2002), as well as on my own interviews with artists Constantin Mara, Ion Grigorescu, Matei Lazarescu, Kuki Constantinescu and Stefan Constantinescu