Ion Bitzan

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Ion Bitzan (born August 23, 1924 in Limanu , Constanța district , † September 15, 1997 in Bucharest ) was a Romanian painter and object artist .

Life

Bitzan was born the son of poor farmers in Dobruja . 1945–1951 he studied at the Institutul de Arte Plastice Nicolae Grigorescu in Bucharest as a student of Jean Alexandru Steriadi . 1963-1977 he was assistant professor or lecturer at this institute, where he founded a design department in 1969 together with others. At times he also worked in Amsterdam. When earthquakes in 1977 he was injured, his studio was destroyed, but he saved a lot of pictures. 1977–1990 he held a professorship for industrial product design at the Institutul de Arte Plastice Nicolae Grigorescu . In 1981 he was visiting professor at several American universities, and from 1990–1997 professor of design and dean at the Bucharest Academy of Art .

Bitzan had been married to Viky Tantas since 1965, with whom he had a daughter. Today Irina Bitzan heads the Bitzan Foundation.

In 1997, Bitzan died of leukemia.

plant

Under extreme ideological pressure, Bitzan always looked for alternatives to socialist realism . In the early 1950s he followed up with realistic painting from the pre-war period with depictions of rural life. 1957–1969 he developed variants of a socialist modernism and oriented himself a. a. to Renato Guttuso . The work of this phase was characterized by strong colors and reduction to a few picture elements. After Romania's cultural and political opening, he represented his country at the 1964 Biennale di Venezia , in 1967, 1969 and 1981 at the São Paulo Biennale .

Since the mid-1970s he was forced to adapt to the pressure of the increasing personality cult . Until the late 1980s, some monumental pictures of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife were created in front of urban or industrial panoramas. Only the portraits of the ruling couple are clearly worked out; the greeting people are only hinted at, their color alienated, extremely reduced in size and forming a faceless crowd.

At the same time, Bitzan privately painted numerous abstract geometric pictures in pastel colors and created collages , book objects and installations in the style of Concept Art influenced by Dadaism . In 1980 he exhibited in the Salon de Paris , in 1981 in the Museum of Modern Art New York and in 1964 in 1997 at the Venice Biennale . In 2017, a retrospective of his work entitled Prisoners of the avant-garde took place at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest.

Bitzan's pictures are located below. a. in the Museum of Modern Art, in the Kunsthalle Hamburg , in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Edinburgh and in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Works

  • Armoniu cromatic (1980), book object
  • Sanzienele (1996), installation, and The Library (1997), installation, exhibited at the 1997 Venice Biennale

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Before & After the Cultural Revolution in Romania: 1971. Exhibition in the Museum of PostModernism.
  2. ↑ Ion Bitzan at www.wikiart.org
personal data
SURNAME Bitzan, Ion
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian painter
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Limanu
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1997
Place of death Bucharest