Ediorials - Interview with Iulia Morcov

Interview made by DanaARTGallery and Bogdan Teodorescu:

Bogdan Teodorescu: When did you hear the word “art” for the first time?

Iulia Morcov: No matter how hard I try, I don’t remember…

B.T.: Why did you choose art? Could you give it up and in what conditions?

I.M.: I have never recognized anything in life except art and I don’t see
anything else besides it.

B.T.: Could you explain in a few words to someone (from outside the field)
what the importance of art is?

I.M.: I couldn’t… because I think that the
significance of art is a mystery in which each one floats alone. I would still
like to mention that the artist, in my opinion, is an egoist. He has no directed intent towards the
particular interests of the spectator. I say this because the viewer, many
times, has expectations regarding the work of art. He claims that the understanding,
the meaning of the work, and through extension, the meaning of art in general should
leap at him as soon as he enters in contact with the work, because the viewer always
lives with the impression that the artist or the art supports him in a
spiritual evolution. As I have already said, the artist is not an altruist and we can’t expect him to offer
value to art in our own lives.

B.T.: What
does the meaning of the term “original” mean?

I.M.: I
think there is a perverted original, impure, meaning to be truly in the interior
of your time, in a dialogue with contemporaneity without
sharing your most intimate substance and obviously, the possibility of
revealing it. But I think that the whole authentic doesn’t exist for us. Being wholly
different from the other things, we can’t recognize or see it, and thus, it
remains hidden.

B.T.:
Do you think originality is necessarily linked to the new work environments
(technique)?

I.M.:
In no way mandatory, but I assume that it is an entitled criterion for
assessing originality.

B.T.: What do you
think is the place and role of contemporary Romanian art in the international artistic
landscape? Where do you place your own creation?

I.M.: There is a
place for Romania in general, in the world, that includes the role of present
art, I think, I don’t know much about it.

B.T.: What do you
think you could change in the relation of the public from Romania with Romanian
contemporary art?

I.M.: There are
many things to be changed and not only the relation, but also the public and
art, and not only in Romania.

B.T.: Where do
you see yourself from a creation point of view in 5 years, in 10 years?

I.M.: I can’t
think that far. I have dreams, but I keep them hidden…

B.T.: Considering
the quite big number of art fairs, art galleries, projects, do you think art is
dead or is it in an effervescent period?

I.M.: No talk
about death, of course. I think it’s in a transit period, although you’re
talking about an effervescence, it’s just a formal one,
I would say, we’re witnessing profound changes that are read in the
temporary paralysis in which nothing new exists anymore.

B.T.: Who are the artists that have influenced you?

I.M.: I don’t think I have been influenced by great artists whose names I
should say here, at least not consciously… or maybe there have been a few, but I don’t want to
mention… but I have had mentors that will, for sure, remain unknown to the
artists in the future, living people with which I have shared a certain road in
a certain moment of my life and the greatest inspiration I have found in the
imperfections, in the anonymity of their lives and their art. In my
works or when I look in the mirror, I see that endless row of people.