Did it happen to you to have a strong connection to a place before you’ve even got there? When I first visited Poiana Soarelui, after hearing so many stories about it from my dad, I found an intricate and controversial open air sculpture exhibition and I couldn’t help not looking deeper into it. The human eye could easily turn that curiosity into an obsession. But for me, the photo lens gave it a meaning too.
Imagine a meadow up a hill, in a village in Transylvania (Saliste), full of monumental carvings from the 1980s, left abandoned and forgotten. A testimony of several sculpture camps that took place between 1981 – 1987 and their rich cultural activity. Once there, you can almost hear and see the chisels hitting the wood, the artists’ sweat and thoughts.
I needed to reopen a lost file of this almost-anonymous yet vivid past. So, I invited the human presence (the clue) to make it obvious that the wooden works are still there, still full of meaning, still talking. That’s how the series got its name of LEMNVIU.
The project journey started on September 30, 2019. Both I and Carla got curious about each sculpture, each author. And there are 70 works, most of them still well preserved, some hidden behind the close doors of trees. We researched the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Romania, the national archives, antique stores, artist files, hunting phone numbers and emails to learn more about the works…
We identified 51 works out of 70.
LEMNVIU is the result and manifestation of all this process to understand the sculptures and the artistic vibe of the 80s. The human character in the photos mimics the theme of the sculpture as we know it now, using the body’s expressive means. [Model: Carla M. | Official Website]
About Moga Alexandru
Moga Alexandru is a self-taught artist, born in Sibiu/Hermannstadt, Romania in 1981. He began his journey in creative arts in 2005 , when he founded Kogaion Art. Kogaion Art was born out of the love for music mostly, and for creating visuals that would acompany most interesting music bands & labels. In 2014 his curiosity took him on the path of carving and experimenting with wood design. He founded then Moga – Wooden Spoons and up to 2017 he has made several wooden spoons , serving trays, bowls and scoops. Made only from the best wood available and with the outmost attention and care to details, his carvings became very rapidly a treasured item. In 2017 his attention turned onto photography, a very powerful source of inspiration and expression for him.
Photography allowed him to be more active in the nature, which he loves. He also tried to combine the powerful images of nature with the beauty of the female form in projects like Artasura and LEMNVIU, exploring the intricate realm of artistic nude set in majestic nature backgrounds. [Official Website]
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