Draft:Roman Tolici
Romanian contemporary artist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roman Tolici (born 1974, Ghetlova, Republic of Moldova) is a Romanian contemporary visual artist who lives and works in Bucharest. He works primarily in oil on canvas, watercolour, and drawing, and is associated with a figurative practice informed by photography. He has been described as one of the representative artists of the generația douămiistă (the Year-2000 generation), a cohort of painters who contributed to the renewal of figurative painting on the Romanian contemporary art scene after the fall of communism.[1][2]
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Roman Tolici | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1974 (age 51–52) |
| Education | National University of Arts, Bucharest (1998) |
| Known for | Painting, drawing, watercolour, digital media |
| Movement | Figurative painting |
He has exhibited at institutions including the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest, the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, the National Art Museum of Moldova in Chișinău, and the Triumph Gallery in Moscow. In 2009, his work was included in Painting (RO)mania, a group exhibition at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.[2] He is represented by Mobius Gallery in Bucharest.
Early life and education
Tolici was born in 1974 in Ghetlova, a village in Raionul Orhei, Republic of Moldova, then part of the Soviet Union, approximately 75 kilometres from Chișinău.[3] His father worked as a cinema projectionist and his mother in a bookshop.[4] He received early artistic training at the Igor Vieru Art School in Chișinău.[1]
In 1990, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tolici relocated to Bucharest on a Romanian state scholarship to attend the Nicolae Tonitza High School of Arts (Liceul de Artă Nicolae Tonitza). He subsequently enrolled at the National University of Arts, Bucharest, graduating in 1998 with a degree in graphic art under the supervision of Nistor Coita. His graduation thesis exhibition, Identități (Identities), was presented publicly at the Sala Constantin Brâncuși of the Palatul Parlamentului.[1][4]
Career
Comics (late 1990s)
In the late 1990s, Tolici contributed to the Romanian comics magazine 2000 Plus, drawing the serial Alex (1997–1999). He also contributed to the Hardcomix anthology series, producing the solo comic book Aaargh!! (Hardcomix, Bucharest, 2002). He was among the first Romanian artists to be published in the international Slovenian comics anthologies Stripburek and Warburger.[5]
Painting career (2000–present)
Tolici established himself as a painter from around 2000. His working relationship with art historian and independent curator Oana Tănase began that year.[1] Writing in Revista Arta, Tănase situated his practice within the renewal of figurative painting in Romanian contemporary art after 2000.[6]
In 2008, the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest hosted his solo exhibition It Could Happen Tomorrow, curated by Oana Tănase, accompanied by the catalogue Addenda.[7] Art critic and curator Simon Hewitt, who later curated Tolici's 2015 exhibition at Mobius Gallery, wrote that he first encountered the artist's work at MNAC that year: "I first saw his works in 2008 at Bucharest's MNAC: a vast, Ceaușescian space where paintings can easily lose themselves. Tolici's paintings (dominated by his Park series) occupied it and my mind."[8]
In 2009, his work was included in Painting (RO)mania, a group exhibition at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. In 2010, his work appeared in Badly Happy: Pain, Pleasure and Panic in Recent Romanian Art at the Performance Art Institute (PAI) in San Francisco.[2]
In 2015, Tolici's exhibition SIMVLACRVM opened Mobius Gallery in Bucharest, curated by Simon Hewitt. Hewitt compared Tolici's technical precision to that of the Russian non-conformist painter Semyon Faibisovich and noted an evolution in his work "from photo-realist to surrealist", describing his brushwork as retaining "its Ingresque precision".[8] In 2016, the exhibition Dark Matter was held at the Triumph Gallery in Moscow, curated by Yana Smurova, with support from the Romanian Cultural Institute.[9] That year a monograph, Roman Tolici, was published by Pandora M / Mobius Gallery (ISBN 978-606-8780-80-1), with an introduction by the French writer Pascal Bruckner and critical texts by Oana Tănase and Matt Price.[10]
The exhibition Pursuit of Happiness was held at the Constanța Museum of Art from February to April 2023. Art historian Valentina Iancu described Tolici as "an emblematic figure of Romanian capitalist realism" and "a detective of the ambiguities that define contemporary man in relation to neoliberal expectations, pressures or promises".[1] Observator Cultural placed the series within a new hyperrealist wave, describing the works as documenting capitalist reality through photographic means reworked into compositions "that ironically blur the boundaries between reality and fiction".[1]
Between 2024 and 2025, his itinerant exhibition New Hope travelled to five venues in Romania: Brașov, Timișoara, Bucharest, Sibiu, and Tulcea. Art critic Diana Marincu described the series as introducing "elements drawn from the register of devastated landscapes, of an accelerated extinction of nature, of the Capitalocene or Petro-Capitalism", characterising painting itself as "the activation of a whole arsenal of survival strategies".[11]
Artistic practice
Tolici works primarily in oil on canvas, watercolour, drawing, digital graphics, video, animation, and three-dimensional objects. He has stated: "I approach painting through a classical, realist language, close to photography as documentation and cinematography as narration."[2] He uses a mobile camera as a working tool, photographing scenes — often without the subjects' awareness — before transposing observations into paint.[3]
He has been associated in critical writing with "photographic realism infused by poetry and a surreal sense of everyday existence".[1] Art historian Valentina Iancu placed his work within what critic Magda Cârneci has called "capitalist realism" — a tendency among his generation to return to figurative painting after communism, engaging with the social conditions of post-communist and neoliberal life.[1] Writing in România Literară, a reviewer characterised his manner as "chimeric realism" and described him as "a subtle and refined observer" proposing "a classical language in which the fusion between painting and narrative constitutes the dominant element".[12]
Recurring subjects across his series include identity, mortality, political power, and collective memory. His Park series (2006–2008) depicted groups of people in public spaces overlaid with national flags. His SIMVLACRVM series (2014–2015) engaged with the possibility that "almost everything can be doubted", developed in "a register that shaped itself in a surrealist key".[10] His Realpolitik series (2023) examined political power through masked figures; Scena9 described the works as presenting masks that "play an inverse role: they unmask the corrupt nature of power".[13]
Selected exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
| Year | Exhibition | Venue | Curator |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024–25 | New Hope (itinerant) | Brașov, Timișoara, Bucharest, Sibiu, Tulcea | |
| 2023 | Realpolitik | Combinatul Fondului Plastic, Bucharest | |
| 2023 | Pursuit of Happiness | Constanța Museum of Art | |
| 2021 | Solo presentation | Roma Arte in Nuvola, Rome | |
| 2016 | Dark Matter | Triumph Gallery, Moscow | Yana Smurova |
| 2015 | SIMVLACRVM | Mobius Gallery, Bucharest | Simon Hewitt |
| 2014 | Milk. Honey. Blood. | Stirbei Palace, Bucharest | Adina Zorzini |
| 2014 | Ceremonies | National Art Museum of Moldova, Chișinău | Adina Zorzini |
| 2011 | Nobody | Jecza Gallery, Timișoara | Oana Tănase |
| 2010 | Action | Virtuell-Visuell, Dorsten | Oana Tănase |
| 2008 | It Could Happen Tomorrow | MNAC, Bucharest | Oana Tănase |
| 2008 | Park | Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu |
Selected group exhibitions
| Year | Exhibition | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Art and the City 1974–2021 | Museum of Recent Art (MARe), Bucharest |
| 2018 | Homo Deus | Mobius Gallery / Vacation Gallery, New York |
| 2010 | Badly Happy: Pain, Pleasure and Panic in Recent Romanian Art | Performance Art Institute (PAI), San Francisco |
| 2009 | Painting (RO)mania | European Central Bank, Frankfurt |
| 2008 | Against All Odds | Slag Gallery, New York |
| 2004 | Donumenta / Republic of Moldova | Historical Museum, Regensburg |
Publications
- Bruckner, Pascal; Tănase, Oana; Price, Matt. Roman Tolici. Pandora M / Mobius Gallery, Bucharest, 2016. ISBN 978-606-8780-80-1.[10]
- Tănase, Oana. "Roman Tolici." In: Revista Arta — Noul Figurativ în pictură după 2000, nr. 2–3, 2011, pp. 95–100.[6]
- 300 Romanian Artists 1990–2020. Propagarta, Bucharest, 2024. p. 190.
- Roman Tolici (catalogue). Ross+Ross Galerie, Stuttgart, 2011.
- Action (catalogue). Virtuell-Visuell, Dorsten, 2010.
- Addenda (catalogue for It Could Happen Tomorrow). MNAC, Bucharest, 2008.
- Park (catalogue). H'art Gallery / Brukenthal National Museum, 2008.