Alina Aliman: Why Florin Mitroi? Why do we need a more complex exhibition of this particular Romanian artist?
Erwin Kessler: One meets lots of people but only clings to a few of them during one's lifetime. In art is the same - there is a museum full of recent artists around, and a curator could imagine countless exhibitions with dozens of exhibited artists. But finally a curator is investing only in a handful of artists, because they somehow frame a curator's formal, existential and spiritual quests. This is the case of Florin Mitroi for me - he incorporates the tragic figure of the secluded and over-critical artist during communism and equally during the early consumerism in Romania. His self-destructive psyche paradoxically fused with his incessant aspiration towards the perfect formal expression of a totally imperfect being is exemplary for the split consciousness of today. It exceeds art by far and goes directly to an anthropological standpoint.
Alina Aliman: For some viewers, his art was kind of dark and violent. And sad, most of the time. How would you describe it?
Erwin Kessler: Precisely like that - dark, violent and sad. But not only. As the exhibition at ARSMONITOR shows, there is plenty of tenderness, frailty, emotion, lyricism as well as irony, sarcasm, and moralism in his art. There is research in his art too - the very special contribution of this exhibition consists in the over 60 photographs selected from the huge archive of photo-research in ethnography and anthropology of Mitroi, as well as some examples from his photo-performances. And, of course, there are quite a few thrilling examples of perfect masterpieces by Florin Mitroi, of sharp, Japanese-like drawing combined with Matisse-like chromatic subtlety. (...)
