LES MOVIES D'ION BÂRLĀDEANU [HALLE SAINT PIERRE]

The makeshift open-air studio of Ion Bârlādeanu was discovered in a back-alley in Bucharest, Romania. Yet its proprietor, a modest and clandestine collagist, was unprepared for the acclaim which swiftly descended upon his once-secret art practice.

As social commentary, Bârlādeanu’s satirical anti-communist and anticapitalist assemblages reveal a wry sense of humour and sharp political savvy. Their brilliance lies in their maker’s visual flair, where impossible eyelines and one-point perspectives coincide effortlessly with the high-gloss, the pornographic and the surreal.

Born in 1946 in Zăpodeni, Romania, Bârlādeanu worked as a farmer, docker, security guard and grave-digger. Yet it was the violent reign of Nicolae Ceausescu, and its subsequent collapse, which indirectly led to this subversive and satirical body of work.

Bârlādeanu describes himself not as an artist, but as a maverick film director. In these, his CinemaScope movies, he commands and controls. World-class actors and Romanian big-wigs collide, sexy ingenues divert the male gaze, Nazis lurk everywhere, cigarettes are currency, and every dispute is settledwith a sausage, a bottle or a gun.