Grațian Gâldău

Grațian Gâldău (b.1970, Timișoara) lives and works in Timișoara. The artist began his studies in 1988 at the Visual Arts Lyceum in Timișoara, in the graduating class of Constantin Flondor. He was a student at the Faculty of the Arts in Timișoara between 1992 and 1995 before registering with the Faculty of the Arts in Bucharest, at the Nicolae Grigorescu University, currently the National University of the Arts, where he graduated after a series of interruptions in 2004.

Grațian Gâldău stands out from the crowd as a strong influence and inspiration during the mid-90s, both during his time spent in Timișoara and in Bucharest. Between 1992 and 1995, he co-organized the renowned Student Fest, one of the few festivals to set the tone and draw in countless artists and cultural actors of the time from all around the country and the capital. Then, Grațian Gâldău, along with Sebastian Cosor and Marius Stein, worked under the auspices of an artistic active mini-group known as Magoții, or the Macaques.

A free spirit and a maverick during the '90s, on a meandering and tumultuous path, and with a proto-artistic attitude, Grațian Gâldău made himself known in Bucharest during and after his years as a student. His projects and interventions include the film "The Wall" in 1994, perhaps his most well-known, the 1996 false electoral campaign "Vote Jean Claude Van Damme, a steady hand in the capital's city hall". Gâldău and Cosmin Pălălău, along with Matei Corvin and two artist friends, Nicolae Comănescu and Dumitru Gorzo, would later co-found the group Rostopasca, and blanket the capital's center with 5,000 posters of Jean Claude Van Damme, a rare moment of public levity for the period.

Gâldău's character is that of the enfant terrible, his attitude rises out of the avantgarde, all leading to his rejection, since university, of traditional painting and the condition of the artist, as sketched out in the 90s. He moved toward the new creative proto-industry, toward video graphics and video games in the 2000s, in particular, quickly becoming one of the most prolific "creators" in the new world of advertising and the rise of pop culture in Bucharest. Maintaining his edge, Gâldău abandoned the creative industry and, in 2015, returned to Timișoara to focus on experimental film and documentary, post-conceptual art forms, intervention, objet trouvé, readymade, and archive.

Grațian Gâldău is currently splitting his time between documentary film and art, some of his most spectacular recent creations include directing a documentary dedicated to Timișoara architects and a book in three volumes, "Atomi Egrete Regrete", with a limited run of three copies, recording his exchange with his "four-dimensional" friend, Nistor.