Operating as performance artist, writer and director, Buescu’s artistic praxis combines autobiographical elements with techniques of research and documentary mainly staged as live performance art pieces. Alexandru Buescu was born in 1985 in Bucharest, The Socialist Republic of Romania, under the communist regime of Ceaușescu. His work questions social issues related to: freedom of speech, fake news, internet, individual or collective memory, distribution of the sensible, human alienation due to technology, rituals, family, adulthood, isolation, fear, loss of individuality or the duality and problem of the ego. At the same time, it challenges assumptions, perceptions and expectations related to his own art practice and research. To this the live dimension of his performances aims to create inspiring or provocative experiences for the audience, where the vitality of the (rebellious) human body as opposed to fixed, rigid structures (buildings, concrete floors, machines, the earth) is always displayed as a declaration of freedom against oppressive treatments. By creating unexpected situations or inventing ambiguous “characters”, directly or indirectly related to his own nature, in his performances Buescu investigates the roles of the performer and the audience, the exposure of body, the question of the representation from conventional schemes to real situations. The use of videos, voice or sound recordings, objects made out of paper, toys, photos, poems, official documents, interviews, sand or even animal meat acquire symbolic meaning in his work while the traces left on stage became evidence of the everyday absurd human behavior. Driven by his own life experience, curiosity and critical thinking towards a profound understanding of the present issues that shape our society, Alexandru undertakes long time periods of research practice across various fields, usually opposite to his artistic training.
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Poemele Corpului
Performance

10/09/2017

The performance piece “Poemele corpului I” was the first time staged autobiographical story and was presented in Sibiu, on the 10th of September 2017 in the frame of 25 Hours of Non-Stop Theater Festival. The text is a three-part poem written by Alexandru in 2016. The concept behind the live presentation was inspired by a childhood event and the piece was performed by himself and the actor Adrian Matioc from the “Radu Stanca” National Theatre. The entire performance was presented in a large industrial hall in front of an audience of 50 people at 01:30 A.M.

“I wish I could remember every single moment I experienced. To open my eyes and project any moment from the past. I would build a castle dedicated to memory. A place where all the memories of those who failed to pass them on are well guarded. There would be so many memories, people would have been different. So I can only restore fragments from the past. I have this infinite and childish freedom, to give a meaning to moments that only I have lived through, and this way to bring my small contribution to this castle made of sand…” (Alexandru Buescu)

“In a child’s memory only one feature of situations, characters, events, places and moments in time is always preserved. …father arrives (to have his holiday), keeps swearing and packs up… …mother always leaves and disappears, then: longing… The whole memory of the life of a person is marked for me by a single word, a single feature.” (Tadeusz Kantor – A Child’s Memory, 13.III.1980)

concept, text, performance and visuals Alexandru Buescu

sound design Ovidiu Savu Ioniță

photographer Alin Praf

special thanks to Anca Maria Colțeanu and Bogdan Sărătean

Location: UNIMAT Hall, Sibiu