Alexandru Chira\u2019s (b. T\u0103u\u0219eni, Romania, 1947; d. Bucharest, 2011) oeuvre systematically and comprehensively maps a fictional field of research. His paintings, drawings, and objects, whose individual elements recall switches, screens, keyboards, and levers, were designed to \u201cbring rain and rainbows,\u201d to promote prosperity and prevent floods. Working in his art laboratory, Chira resembled a farmer tilling his field. He sowed symbols across his paintings, sometimes transplanted them to create new semiotic interconnections, then reaped them and stored up his harvest in painted machines of varying shapes and dimensions. In the 1990s\u2014by then Chira held a professorship and was a widely recognized artist\u2014he fulfilled a lifelong dream by building the \u201cT\u0103u\u0219eni Ensemble,\u201d the largest monument single-handedly created by one man in Transylvania. Much of his oeuvre accordingly consists of sketches and elaborations relating to the monument. In the course of his decades-long fascination with an agrarian aesthetic, architecture, design, astronomy, history, magic, ufology, mysticism, shamanism, and theosophy fused, yielding a kind of practical knowledge as well as spiritual speculations sustaining his endeavor.<\/p>\n
The extensive monograph with more than 750 illustrations surveys Alexandru Chira\u2019s output of four decades and synthesizes years of research undertaken at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. It contains numerous transcriptions of textual parentheses, legends, and instructions on how to decode the works and poetic fragments embedded in Chira\u2019s pictures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alexandru Chira\u2019s (b. T\u0103u\u0219eni, Romania, 1947; d. Bucharest, 2011) oeuvre systematically and comprehensively maps a fictional field of research. His paintings, drawings, and objects, whose individual elements recall switches, screens, keyboards, and levers, were designed to \u201cbring rain and rainbows,\u201d to promote prosperity and prevent floods. Working in his art laboratory, Chira resembled a farmer tilling his field. He sowed symbols across his paintings, sometimes transplanted them to create new semiotic interconnections, then reaped them and stored up his harvest in painted machines of varying shapes and dimensions. In the 1990s\u2014by then Chira held a professorship and was a widely recognized artist\u2014he fulfilled a lifelong dream by building the \u201cT\u0103u\u0219eni Ensemble,\u201d the largest monument single-handedly created by one man in Transylvania. Much of his oeuvre accordingly consists of sketches and elaborations relating to the monument. In the course of his decades-long fascination with an agrarian aesthetic, architecture, design, astronomy, history, magic, ufology, mysticism, shamanism, and theosophy fused, yielding a kind of practical knowledge as well as spiritual speculations sustaining his endeavor.<\/p>\n
The extensive monograph with more than 750 illustrations surveys Alexandru Chira\u2019s output of four decades and synthesizes years of research undertaken at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. It contains numerous transcriptions of textual parentheses, legends, and instructions on how to decode the works and poetic fragments embedded in Chira\u2019s pictures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":19195,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[2208,2209,2212,2213,2211],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18601","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-all-books","7":"product_cat-architecture","8":"product_cat-installation-art","9":"product_cat-painting","10":"product_cat-photography","12":"first","13":"instock","14":"taxable","15":"shipping-taxable","16":"purchasable","17":"product-type-simple"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n