Ion Bârladeanu 1946 (Romania)

The makeshift open-air studio of Ion Bârladeanu 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, Bârladeanu’s anti-communist and anti-capitalist assemblages reveal a wry sense of humour and sharp political savvy. The brilliance lies in their maker’s visual flair, where impossible eye-lines and one-point perspectives coincide effortlessly with the high-gloss, the pornographic and the surreal.

Born in 1946 near the Moldavian border, Bârladeanu spent much of his adulthood drifting. He worked as a farmer, a docker, a securit...