ALEX ZORILĂ

CONVULSION LTD.: DROPS ON A HOT PLATE

CONVULSION LTD.: DROPS ON A HOT PLATE

Triumf Amiria. Museum of Queer Culture, Bucharest

18.01.2025 — 23.02.2025

curated by Kilobase Bucharest

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Would there be any pleasure in reading if all the paragraphs of an article had to be understood and not felt? If words were intellectually used, but not even sung, maybe not even emotionally considered? 

We used to gather snails when it rained

Disoriented, small antennae, pointing here and there

Trying to find a place to cover from the rain

We gathered them, “we’ll keep you safe”

All in one place, should be ok

We ran inside to shield from the rain

I regret that to this day.

When we came back they were all trampled

Other kids laughed, how stupid!

To hide to protect to die in the end.

Time pushed, forward

From here, onwards

Through the endless road of possibilities 

Of art, queerness and the politics of now

Visit one last time

The exhibition below

Remember how it feels

To be an observer of queer art

One of the most fragile forms of art

That today is here, and tomorrow may not

II. LUCIAN BARBU

The CSSM-CT newspaper explores real, more recent, sometimes painful events. For the newspaper, I turned my attention to a simple, sombre, respectful resolve. The framing solutions I used on each page can be seen as "playful", although for me they represent my admiration for comic books. This fascination motivates me to propose framing methods closely related to the documentary material.

~ Lucian Barbu

The three stories from The CSSM-CT (The Occupational Health and Safety Commission Cugir-Timișoara) newspaper explore internal workplace safety policies, but also how blame is distributed in the event of an accident. Continuing under the theme of solidarity with the oppressed, Lucian reimagined working class stories filtered through one’s own experiences.

Sit on your thrones, have your champagne

Piercing eyes from underneath

Watch as ignorance prevails

.......................Will

Sin....................................Find

.......................You

And death will come for you too

The rich eventually get eaten by the poor.

With patience and persistence

We watch as the tide turns in their favour

But we hang on, from ancestors we know

When fascism rises, our dreams and hopes will save us all.

IV. SOFIA ZADAR

With dignity and permission, with space for possibilities, my utopia comes from within, from the senses rather than the mind, from practices older than those that construct our present reality. From below, from the soil that grows our food, from somatic impulses still attuned to natural biorhythms, from living at crossroads rather than on crowded highways with fixed destinations. We draw inspiration from the expansive ways in which biodiversity and neurodiversity relate to each other, seeking ways to be together and in constant transition/transformation. We unite against fascism and in solidarity with all forms of life on the planet.

~ Sofia Zadar

Sofia Zadar is a master in connecting various art form practices, from acting, music, lyrics to drag and visual arts, exhibiting a variety of melodies, ending with a spoken word installation. A queer utopia.

The melody and lyrics of Sâmca are one of the artworks part of this exhibition.

Sâmca, a mythological creature from Romanian folklore said to be an unclean spirit, very ugly and terrifying that takes the form of a naked woman, is the protagonist of Sofia Zadar’s sapphic ballad. As Sâmca approaches Sânziana, the woman she loved, she discovers her transformation as the creature, looking tattered and disheveled, wrung out, crying, and ragged from a supposed curse by a master, surely a boy, with a frown on his forehead and a broken grin.

Sâmca’s lover runs away, and the creature realizes that Sânziana will never acknowledge their relationship, as Sâmca becomes your fears of people like yourself and class and gender hatred that keeps you in bitter chains of silver. 

A tragic tale that captures the dire end of a sapphic love.

VI. ALEX HORGHIDAN

Alex Horghidan is an artist whose works define the unapologetically queer and anti-capitalist scene in Bucharest with graphic designs for theatre performances, queer festivals, community events, online magazines and many more. With an already clear and easily recognizable style and designs ranging from characters that you’d desire to have tattooed on your body, with their jolly back stories and subtle queer innuendos, to kinky, sexy stories, to characters portraying queer bodies and queer sex, that, honestly, you might still want to tattoo on your body.

The Pretty (bad) tattoo installation offers a selection of possible tattoo stencils, but also the full working set-up of a tattoo artist. Maybe a look into the past of Alex Horghidan as a tattoo artist. Would you come to an exhibition and let yourself be tatted?

VIII. GAVRIL POP

If my work makes you wonder about direction, you probably know where you want to go—the work just mediates this action a little, it's a guide, maybe just for one step. And yes, maybe the destination isn't even relevant. I set out on all these paths because I don't know any other way to communicate with the things around me: signs, ideas, interactions, anything. So the elements I create are syntheses of these factors, a kind of puzzle or a long and continuous process. But these are my motivations. When the objects are exhibited, other things come into play. If someone trusts my objects, I trust the other person's decision. I don't often feel the urge to exhibit, but when I do, I think it's more out of a desire to see how people respond; sometimes it doesn't work. But ultimately, that's all they are: impulses, samples, tools.

~ Pop Gavril

In Plans for an announcement, the flags present abstract impulses received in trance-like states, exploring both the nature of materiality and the mysteries that lie beyond it. Its purpose is to let symbols and signs evolve freely, intertwining in an ongoing cycle of interpretation and recontextualization.

This process mirrors the transformation of both physical and abstract matter, ultimately leading everything back to its source.

The resulting images serve several purposes: to reconnect with the original state of being, to leave behind traces, to send messages from beyond, and to encourage a slower, more mindful communication with the fundamental elements of life.

Gavril Pop does not give us a direction, but more of a proposition: to go through the passage and react to the stimuli. Ending the possibility of getting lost and concentrating more on the process of interacting with the piece. A flag placed next to the passage with multiple arrows pointing in different directions is mocking the concept of destination, as if to say “Do not start this journey by expecting to arrive somewhere”.

I. APPARATUS 22

With A GALAXY OF LUST, we wanted to explore the concept of desire from the perspective of a fictional machine, Atletica Ideal, in order to open up a reflection on the hybridization of the body, the relationship with technology, and, above all, radical imagination.

~ Apparatus 22 (Erika & Maria)

The last room of CONVULSION LTD.: DROPS ON A HOT PLATE is meant for lust. While this emotion is characteristic to how we experience queer art, how much do we allow it to fill up a space?

I. APPARATUS 22

Once the spaces for most of the pieces in the exhibition had been determined, it was time to select the works for Apparatus 22. This approach added an extra layer of dialogue between the works and contributed to the coherent expansion—given the eclectic nature of our practice—of the range of subjects and perspectives on the body proposed in the exhibition.

The questions in the Positive Tension series bring to the spotlight queer perspectives on the museum structures that shape the social body.

Through the series of flags Everything at a distance becomes abstraction, which diverts references from art history, we wanted to make an unignorable commentary on war, genocide, and disasters. The neon portrait speaks of the fragility and resilience of a community with utopian ideals in the Triumf Amiria universe.

~ Apparatus 22 (Erika & Maria)

Today is here and tomorrow may not

Never forget 

How they massacred them

We went to protest and demanded out loud

Cease fire now!

Time passed, protests stopped

And as they were massacring us

No one was left to demand.

Free Palestine!

The works of Apparatus 22 open and close the exhibition. We begin by remembering the ongoing war and genocide in the world as a clear reminder that an integral part of queerness is solidarity with the oppressed. To have a queer future - to further venture into the exhibition and appreciate queer art - you need to understand and be aware of where you position yourself in society today. As you start your journey through the space, Positive Tension is the artwork that prepares you to question what you see, that challenges you to change your perspective and be playful “What if bodybuilding strategies shaped a queer museum?”

III. MARIA BALEA

The hand represents the mystical, unseen, and (possibly) divine force that guides us or acts in ways we cannot fully understand. The hand also represents the human subconscious, another hidden force that shapes us. The subconscious is what "holds" and processes so much information, often without us knowing. The eye is a reflection of myself, but also of the viewers. It is a mirror and a reminder of our interconnection with the universe and the existence of mysteries, things greater than ourselves, beyond our immediate understanding. The gesture of the hand supporting the eye is an invitation to look at "the bigger picture" and beyond appearances. The piercing in the fingernail, representing the Earth and the Moon, emphasizes this cosmic connection I mentioned above.

This exploration continues through a macrocosmic perspective, and Earth is observed from this "floating rock"—an autonomous ecosystem that "navigates" through space. This image is another reminder of the need to change the perspective from which we view things. To look at things from a different angle, to understand that what seems fixed may in fact be in constant flux, highlighting the fragility and uniqueness of our existence in the cosmic vastness.

The two works are reminders for me—not to forget, literally, to look at things from another perspective/from multiple perspectives. I think this is something that can be generalized because I am convinced that we all need these reminders more often than we think.

~ Maria Balea

The art of Maria Balea can easily suck you in, as it pushes you to slow down and take in details that only grow in numbers as you get closer. Each time you look at this piece, you will see something new, something you didn’t notice before. At some point you will feel the need to take a step back. Watch the full picture again. This is how we’re reminded to look at things from multiple perspectives. Art can transform itself together with us.

V. ALEX BODEA

My characters are, almost entirely, people I meet in public spaces, passers-by whom I capture for a few seconds. Those who catch my attention and end up in my works are, in my eyes, bearers of (short) stories; they have something narrative, something 'bookish' about them.  I create a mental note of these characters so that later, when I arrive in the studio, I can 'put them on stage', to dramatise them through my compositions. The sequences I capture from their lives are rather subtle, minimal, the opposite of sensational. For me, this practice means survival. It is my way of enjoying and coming to terms with a world that has a different rhythm than the one that suits me personally. 

~ Alex Bodea

Previously illustrated is The fabulous procession. Surrounding it we see various pigments and miscellaneous materials, such as DNA and Tears & Honey. Perhaps answers to the question “What goes to a canvas throughout the process of creation?”.

Marking the middle point of the exhibition, Alex Bodea naturally captures, besides queer individuals freely expressing themselves in other times, characters like Patriarhul Buricul Pământului (The Patriarch of the Center of the Earth), Patriarhul Bărbat-Adevărat (The Real Man Patriarch) and Patriarhul Incestuos (The Incestuous Patriarch).

As Alex Bodea said, those characters are people that we are bound to see in real life, transformed and ‘put on a stage’, to cope with living in a world that follows a rhythm unsuitable for many of us. The stage allows them to perform to their liking, creating a colorful and rather cheerful sight that progressively unravels the irony and ridiculousness of those characters. However, as a contrast to the characters that fully display their failings, Alex Bodea manages to create a world that truly allows queer characters to exist unapologetically, fully expressing themselves. Further cementing the irony of how one allows the other to exist. 

VII. ȘTEFAN BOTEZ

I like it when a work provokes emotions more than thought. I have always been attracted to the idea of "sexy" art—art that is capable of being both appealing and uncomfortable at the same time. 

That tension creates an authentic space where a breakthrough can occur. 

I don't think I'm hiding anything; on the contrary, I think I'm being candid. 

However, in this lush, neo-fascist, post-neo-romantic landscape, the struggle with one's own desire often remains unseen. 

Decadence thus becomes an allegory of escape—a continuous pleasure, never fully satisfied. 

An infinite loop.

~ Ștefan Botez

Down on your knees

That’s how I forgive your sins

If you sin once

You gotta sin more

With a butch lesbian for the father

With a hot bisexual for the mother

And a problematic twink for the holy spirit

That’s how we triumph

By fucking each other.

Ștefan Botez’s art creates a setting in which desire can be created by interacting with the works in front of you. 

How would you feel if you went to an exhibition that made you lust over the human body, over a fantasy? Ștefan says that it could be appealing and uncomfortable at the same time. What do you say?

Is queer art the doorway to freedom of publicly allowing ourselves to feel lust?

An art form censored since its creation, censorship meant to control emotions and the action of feeling in public spaces. 

The ambient of the exhibition space changes with each new decorated corner that we experience. We passed through class, war and genocide awareness, into changing perspectives, queer utopia and a sapphic ballad, a tattoo parlour, a stage where mischievous characters perform and sexual desire.

II. LUCIAN BARBU

The series of irregular comic strips is a personal project through which I put my recurring childhood dreams on paper. The project with the dwarves, also known as Earthlings, is a continuation of a habit I had as a child. Because both projects are a direct continuation of my early practice, I approach them with the same desire to play, experiment, and discover.

The serenity brought by the shapes and colors in projects continued from childhood is quickly accompanied by melancholy. When I take ideas or practices from childhood, I also include the less "beautiful" aspects. However, documentary comic book projects, such as CSSM-CT, are opportunities for me to explore another practice that I am passionate about, in which I use a different language and in which there are other stakes. 

~ Lucian Barbu

Towards the end of the exhibition we meet Lucian’s works again, but this time they are in antithesis to The CSSM-CT newspaper, which was filled with painful stories. We’re presented Earthlings and serenity wraps around us while remembering our own stories of dwarves and other mythical creatures from childhood. We travel to our childhood place, where we crafted our innocence and kept it safe from the outside world.