Constantin Severin's Page

Website

www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile/Constantin+Sev...

Relationship status

married

College / University

Iasi University

Graduation

15 July 1977

Member type

Artist

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?

Conceptual, Painting

I am...

Constantin Severin was born in Baia de Arama, Romania.

He is a writer(www.yuniku.no), member of the Romanian Writers' Union (represented by Bodtker Yuniku Agency, Oslo) and a visual artist, member of European Artists e.V. Group, Germany. Free art studies.
From 1991 to 2004 he worked as a journalist for different Romanian publications, but also for BBC and Free Europe radio.
Currently Constantin Severin works at the County's Library of Bucovina ''I.G. Sbiera'',Suceava. Fellow-worker of the Italian art magazine ''It's Liquid'' (www.itsliquid.com).


Activity as a visual artist

Solo exhibitions:

''Text and Time'', September 2004, The Bucovina Museum Complex, Suceava, Romania, (included in the EuroNews Agenda of major European cultural events);
''The Signs of the Time'', November 2004, The NahVision Art Gallery in Stuttgart, Germany(also included in the EuroNews Agenda).
''Time's Metaphors'', February 2006, The Velea (TransArt) Gallery in Bacau, Romania.
''Matrioshka Identities'', February 2007, Art Gallery of the ''Stephen the Great'' University, Suceava, Romania.
UNESCO Ambassador of eurointegration through art. Twenty-one times in TOP 50(4 times TOP 10) at the online art competition SHOWDOWN, organized by SAATCHI GALLERY.

Activity as a writer

He has published over 800 articles, essays and interviews on culture,
art theory and criticism, as well as on other issues of Romanian and
international interest. He has introduced into our current vocabulary two
new concepts: archetypal expressionism and post -literature, in essays
published on the site of the well known Saatchi Gallery of London (these
may be viewed at http://www.saatchi-galery.co.uk). The first essay
concerns contemporary art, the latter, an original philosophy of culture.

Works:

'The Sunday of Things Real'' (poetry), Junimea Publishing House, Iasi, Romania,
1984;
''Wall and Neutrino'' (poetry, bilingual edition-Romanian/English, translated by Liviu
Martinescu), Vlasie Publishing House, Pitesti, Romania, 1994; the poem was included
as such in the anthology of ''Contemporary Romanian Poetry'' by Marin
Mincu, Pontica Publishing House, 2000; the poem won The Bucovina Cultural
Foundation Awards;
''Wall and Neutrino'', Minerva Publishing House, London, 1997; translation by Liviu
Martinescu;
''Improvisations on armonic key'' (poetry), Axa Publishing House, Botosani, Romania,
1998;
''The Axolotl'' (poetry), Masina de Scris Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998; the first
renga (renku) book in the Romanian literature, bilingual edition-Romanian/
English, translation by Liviu Martinescu; awarded by the Bucovina Cultural Foundation,
1999;
''The Alchemical City'' (selected poems), Dacia Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, Romania,
2002; awarded by the Bucovina Cultural Foundation, 2003;
''The Sacred Empire. Monasteries and churches in Northern Moldavia'', Paralela 45
Publishing House, Pitesti, Romania, 2003.
Awards
The poetry award of the Daily Yomiuri newspaper, Japan,
1996. The award for cultural journalism given by
the Romanian Ministry of Culture, 1998. The award for
cultural journalism given by the City Hall and the County
Council of Suceava, 2001.

About my artwork

ARCHETYPAL EXPRESSIONISM
by Constantin Severin


Archetypal Expressionism lies between the two major paradigms of contemporary art, the figurative and the abstract. It represents the spiritual quest for common cultural roots beyond the tragic accidents of history. It is a fascinating approach to rediscovering that Tahiti of our collective memory through the shapes and the exotic figures of our inner lives. It is art suspended between the real and the imaginary, and it needs rigor and mystery, arithmetic and lyricism, simplicity and paradox.

My work concept as a visual artist, archetypal expressionism, though could be considered a new one, it describes an immemorial artistic reality. Archetypal expressionism is indeed a new concept and yet it echoes an ancient tradition in making art, also specific to cultures of a remote past.
Strong colors, deformities and a special sensitivity to imagine the world are not exclusively the prerogatives of modern expressionists.

The archetype is a universal symbol, just as untranslatable as music. The archetypal fields are real, a mystery of the universe. The archetypal cosmos is atemporal; it only contains a virtual germ of time. A well-known specialist in Mircea Eliade's work, Prof. dr. Sabina Fînaru, asserts
that the famous Romanian historian of religions and writer iamgined the sacred archetype as an archetype of origin but also as a transcendental “chronotope,” manifesting a bi-unitary, mobile, self-generative and reversible character. The Eliadian archetype is repeatable in the absolute, and it re-innovates ontological meaning.

The best Romanian artists of all times, Constantin Brancusi, George Apostu, Ion Tuculescu, Paul Neagu and Ovidiu Maitec belong to archetypal expressionism, in my opinion, but also Paul Klee or Xul Solar. I intend with my own concept to tell to the art community that from remote times we have THE THIRD PARADIGM(better to say, the first!) , the archetypal art, because most of the contemporary art experts in the world assert there are only two major paradigms, the figurative and the abstract. The archetypes have a secret power, because they have been used during thousands of years by a large amount of populations and they are now a part of our hidden inner life.That's why they have a special emotional impact on every human being.

Every major work of art begins with an archetype and ends in music, the most ineffable manifestation of time.

Artists I like

Klee, Solar, Brancusi.

Interests

Major gallerists, curators, collectors.

Esto's Lover
First novel by the acclaimed Romanian poet Constantin Severin (The Alchemical City, Walls
and Neutrino etc.)
Synopsis
In March of 1975 the famous Argentine writer Ernesto Sabato (Esto), falls in love, at the age
of 62, with a young physicist, Maria Rustin, 36, at the University of Buenos Aires. Their
affair, an impressive story in this city of “el tango,” catalyzed by a touching need for
communication, is facilitated by the appearance of a new device, the fax machine.
During their heated correspondence Esto is surprised to find in Maria a potentially gifted
novelist. He encourages her to write a book. Both lovers experience radical changes in their
inner lives, as the affair progresses. After it has gone on, however, for several months Maria's
husband, Daniel Rustin, an Oxford physicist (interested in teleportation and the effects of
sound on matter), learning of it, decides to make it public. By the end of the novel he succeeds
in moving objects with the help of sounds. The reader must discover for himself how Daniel
accomplishes this and its effects upon a beautiful love story.
The narrator of the magic-hyperrealist novel is Maria herself, who describes actual events
in the lives of well-known people in Buenos Aires, in her native region, Bucovina, and
elsewhere in world history. She includes details regarding two secret societies founded in the
Middle Ages to promote the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci.
Their shadowy masters, Right Hand Circle and Left Hand Circle, move across the
boundaries of time to instruct Leonardo himself and such modern masters such as Picasso,
Dali, Brauner and Warhol. Under their influence subliminal messages are introduced into
works of art. We learn how Left Hand Circle causes Leonardo to create the ''Mona Lisa,'' why
Victor Brauner loses an eye in Paris. We learn too of a crime committed in Bucharest. Finally,
Maria must assume the role of private detective to reveal how certain agents of the Left Hand
Circle in 1989 victimize her own childhood friend, Mihai Driscu, the well-known Romanian
art critic.
Secondary characters in this spectacular narrative include J. L. Borges, Astor Piazzola, Xul
Solar, Henri Coanda, Victor Brauner and Ernesto Kahan, most of whom had been living, at
one time or another, in a city where the soul of tango is itself a major character. Love,
passion, mystery, art and music co-mingle as essential ingredients of this amazing novel.
The manuscript will be available in Romanian very soon. (2008)
World rights for sale. Please contact Marit Bödtker,
Bodtker Yuniku Agency,yuniku@online.no. tel. +47 908 23045
Read more about Constantin Severin on www.yuniku.no

The centre of the artworld is

nowhere and everywhere

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