In the solo show Un-Utopie, Traian Boldea explores the fragility of collective ideals in a time where meaning collapses, the mass becomes the utopia, and the individual dissolves into uniformity.
In the solo show Un-Utopie, Traian Boldea explores the fragility of collective ideals in a time where meaning collapses, the mass becomes the utopia, and the individual dissolves into uniformity. The exhibition from Altes Dampfbad gathers small-format works from the series The Line, 2021, which, through meditative austerity and graphic precision, express a quiet yet poignant critique of dehumanization through systems, ideologies, and social automatisms.
Inspired by Primo Levi’s testimony from the concentration camp – “Here there is no why” – Boldea addresses not only historical trauma but also its echoes in the present: the emptiness behind collectivity, the speechlessness of the individual, the absurdity of repetition. "Here there is no why?" not only ascertains the lack of reason, but it is also a reflection on the total collapse of the moral and ethical norms that would normally govern human life. This expression summarizes the idea that logic, reason and questions no longer make sense in the face of absolute evil; any attempt to find a justification or explanation becomes useless and essentially absurd.
The brutality described by Primo Levi is painted by Traian Boldea in the form of life sequences which seem to capture moments frozen in time. Small canvases - 30 x 30 cm – contain crowds of humanoids painted in motion, giving the impression of a frieze and/or comics, which can be read circularly and continuously. This is how the crowd is born, seen as an endless line of non-individualized humanoids, caught in various actions at the ends of the imaginable.
The contemporary man cannot consciously perceive such a reality, and often relating to the atrocities of the past is done through an alteration of the memory, of the truthfulness of understanding, of awareness and subsequent experiences. From this point of view, any attempt to accurately capture these atrocities is a failed attempt. The understanding of the “tender spots” of history can be interrogated, discussed and/or reconfigured, broadening and opening new debates through art or even raising an alarm signal. Art offers thus adequate space and framework for the viewer to probe the darkest sides of the human being.
Un-Utopie offers no answers, but a line. A line that separates and connects, that guides and at the same time disappears.
Curator: Diana Dochia, PhD
