Ovidiu Toader
Critic, 2023

Catinca Tabacaru Gallery is thrilled to present Romanian artist Ovidiu Toader’s first solo exhibition with the Gallery, In Another Life I was a Stone, curated by Daria Nedelcu.

Ovidiu Toader’s interest in heterotopias dominates the scene of In Another Life I was a Stone. A sterile environment calls to mind the futuristic laboratory where technology intersects magical thinking. Plantoid entities, made of blown metal forms are frozen in mid-motion as they study the remains of an indefinite past staged on a human shaped glass worktable. They are witnesses to an event suspended in time, looking down at a collection of stones which serve as subject of analysis and decoding.

The installation works as a diorama, enclosing a situation where ambiguity persists and a viewer’s body is forced into and uneasy relationship with the objects and actions around him or her. Toader aims to reflect critically and creatively on a problematic present that can be read using a collective key…