Untitled 1950

Curator: I'm struck by the bold chaos. It feels… energetic, almost aggressively joyful. Editor: Precisely! It certainly has an imposing vitality. We are looking at a work by Alexandre Istrati from 1950, titled, quite simply, “Untitled.” It's acrylic on canvas, a dazzling exercise in Abstract Expressionism. Curator: Istrati truly emphasizes form over any attempt at realistic representation, doesn't he? The dominance of geometric shapes seems almost confrontational. How do we interpret that, historically? Editor: We can contextualize the work as an exploration into pure, non-objective painting and its relation to graffiti and street art movements which speaks volumes. He is interested in challenging artistic and political establishment through the use of those forms. Curator: I notice the heavy reliance on line. It both defines and confines the blocks of color. Does that create tension or harmony, do you think? Editor: An excellent question. The contrast generates what feels like controlled disruption and simultaneously reveals social tensions embedded within it. Look at the dynamism created! Those forceful, bordering strokes—encapsulating each chromatic form—demand we look closer. What about that electric blue shape down the right edge; where is that going? The colour choices suggest hope for me: a push against bleakness. Curator: It’s remarkable to see a connection with murals, a genre whose accessibility to wide and often underserved audiences disrupts the art world from a completely other trajectory. Editor: Absolutely. What appears on the surface to be an arrangement of playful shapes belies an incisive, if oblique, commentary on the period. There's the legacy of exile and belonging too within Istrati's practice, informed by personal political dynamics that cannot be dismissed. It forces us to rethink abstraction as more than simply about forms, as instead potent statements within the social climate it was created. Curator: Thank you, this was such a pleasure to understand “Untitled” by Istrati more deeply and it's an insight into the richness that lies within his choices. Editor: And for me, to delve further into just how vibrant a voice he had and one can only imagine where Istrati's aesthetic may have journeyed had he more fully explored graffiti work and the impact of the political art.