„Educated during a favourable period of our local sculpture schools, in a highly talented generation and exhilarated by full-blooded competition, in a time of aesthetic decanting and coagulation which heralded the reconsidering options of subsequent postmodernity, Pavel Bucur natural fell in with the atmosphere of this new trend, and this guarantee of his native and cultural attributes, which effortlessly but without obvious or experimental distortion placed him in the top position for a new sensitivity and creative vision, which had been dominating the international arena for a few decades.
This rare availability of falling within one’s own time, yet aiming for the reverential elegance towards the essential visual memory of humanity, which he cleverly and un-ostentatiously incorporated in his own plastic philosophy, Pavel Bucur translated it to perfection in a work where the balance and harmony of classic, traditional construction viably and spectacularly coexist with the boldness of envisioning new languages and means of expression.
The exhibition housed by the Controceni Palace referentially summarizes some of the distinctive particulars of this important contemporary artist’s creation. Focusing on a vague nostalgic retrospective, through his reportorial and stylistic contrasts, the event – also coincidentally and involuntarily marking an anniversary threshold in the artist’s earthly journey – a great part of the works displayed are recent, some even specially designed for this representative gala.
I believe the predominant feature of Pavel Bucur’s sculptural creation is the rendition of the eruptive tension of matter, translated as a germinating matter, creator of dynamic and coherent shapes and spatial structures. What is fascinating in works such as “Genesis”, “Germination”, “Burden”; “Yet Maternal”; “Winged Column” is the telluric strain by which the shape tends to liberate itself from the primordial matrix. The artist reunites with the same gesture the ecstatic and regenerative force of matter with the spiritual drive of creational revelation, almost like remembering, in a different time and on a different scale, the grand sculpture lesson of the Michelangelo-esque “Slaves” and of Brancusi’s “Dream”.
Bucur often resorts to plastic solutions of extreme synthetics. He introduces in the plastic equation obsolete syntax and morphology elements, where the constructive favour follows a laborious process of decomposition and fragmentation of the formal logic of images. The sculptor recomposes by sometimes simplifying (such in “Manole’s Ana”, “Music”, “Icarus”) or by sometimes accepting Baroque influences (such in “The Family Burden”; “Rebirth”; “Harlequin”, “The Tree of Life”) in the compositional core, usually amorphous and with a net symbolic and significant load, in spatial developments with allegorical or metaphoric hints with an expressiveness filled with pathos.
Thanks to his methods and inventive intelligence, the sculptor cultivates a plastic language and an imagistic poetic according to his own temperament and his own sensitivity and artistic knowledge. Explicitly focusing on the relation between his sculptural rhetoric and the space where his compositions are about to empower him, regardless of materials and sizes – weather it’s wood, stone, bronze, stainless steel, gold and semi-precious stones, textile fabrics or coloured marble shards for his parietal compositions, Bucur obstinately practices an art of grandiloquence and agoric harmony. His sculptural protections are at the same time heroic and decorative, epic and symbolic-totemic, monumental and ornamental, designed for the public forums, and also for household environments and privacies. Today, his cavalcade of “Winged”, “Icaruses”, “Deities” and “Dianas”, of “Princesses”, of “Light or Heavenly Gates”, of “Scribes” and “Pharaos”, of “Trinities” (…) emblazon urban areas, public and private premises, water shores, gardens, tomb reservations, and even displays of ceremonial or precious trophies, augural symbols taken over by prestigious jewelry stores.
Based on a profound translation of artistic sculptural tradition regardless of age, and also on the secrets of the careful craft of shaping raw materials, Pavel Bucur’s sculpture, as we perceive it today, is a happy twinning of the sensual, virile objectivism of shapes with the ineffable metaphysics of thought and poetic thinking. However, it is also a triumph of the modern spirit acquired during by his ageless and highly resonant reasons in the vivid and dynamic space of contemporary culture.
The modernity of Bucur’s creation stems from his valuable artistic and aesthetic filo-genesis, confessed time and again – Boccioni, Archipenko, Brancusi… These are affinely steadfast components and flexibly assimilated with his artistic personality and with his plastic philosophy. These are attributes the Romanian artist also amplifies today, creatively and originally, with an ever clear sensitivity, through the dense vibration of the mythological and spiritual (sometimes mystical) epos of his artistic origin, as through the humanistic model animating his every creative gesture. – CORNELIU ANTIM, literary critic, Bucharest, October 2009
„Educated during a favourable period of our local sculpture schools, in a highly talented generation and exhilarated by full-blooded competition, in a time of aesthetic decanting and coagulation which heralded the reconsidering options of subsequent postmodernity, Pavel Bucur natural fell in with the atmosphere of this new trend, and this guarantee of his native and cultural attributes, which effortlessly but without obvious or experimental distortion placed him in the top position for a new sensitivity and creative vision, which had been dominating the international arena for a few decades.
„Educated during a favourable period of our local sculpture schools, in a highly talented generation and exhilarated by full-blooded competition, in a time of aesthetic decanting and coagulation which heralded the reconsidering options of subsequent postmodernity, Pavel Bucur natural fell in with the atmosphere of this new trend, and this guarantee of his native and cultural attributes, which effortlessly but without obvious or experimental distortion placed him in the top position for a new sensitivity and creative vision, which had been dominating the international arena for a few decades.
Date of birth: 01.11.1945, Bistrita-Nasaud, Romania
Education: 1960-1965 – High School of Fine Arts – Cluj, Romania
1965-1971 – “Nicolae Grigorescu” Institute of Fine Arts, Bucharest, sculpture section – the class of Prof. Ion Lucian Murna
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
1974-1975 D. Paciurea Scholarship
1970 Member of the Union of Fine Artists, Bucharest, Romania
1971-1972 Union of Fine Artists Scholarship
1971 Andreescu Scholarship
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Participant in over 100 national, 60 international and 46 personal exhibitions.
PUBLIC WORKS
over 40 public works in: Romania, Italy, Germany, Poland, among which:
2001 Mystica, stone; 2.60 m – Backnang, Germany
2000 Bird of the Night, resonance fir; 1.70 m – Madonna di Campiglio, Italy
2000 Holy Family, Ruschita marble; 2.20 m – Fildas Foundation, Bucharest
2000 Germination, Ruschita marble; 2 m – Fildas Foundation, Bucharest
2000 Carpathian Bird, elm; 2 m – Fildas Foundation, Bucharest
2000 White Angel, marble; 3.60 m – Radio headquarters, Bucharest
1999 Trinity, Ruschita marble; 2.20 m – Fildas Foundation, Bucharest
1998 Trinity, stone de Istria; 1.20 m – Caorle, Italy
1998 Monumental Mosaics, ceramics; 360 sqm – Fildas Foundation, Bucharest
1996 Christ, Carrara marble; 0.70 m – Chioggia, Italy
1996 Via crucis, Carrara marble; 3.30 m – Chioggia, Italy
1995 Burden, stone de Istria; 2.30 m – Chioggia, Italy
1995 Eternity, Ruschita marble; 1.70 m – Bacau, George Apostu Museum
1994 Knight, Carrara marble; 2.50 m – Scandiano, Italy
1993 Pharaoh, Carrara marble; 2.10 m – Puianello, Italy
1991 Prodigal Son, limestone; 2.80 m – Fannano, Italy
1991 Heroes’ Gate, travertin; 4.50 m – Prundul Bargaului (Bistrita), Romania
1990 Burden, limestone; 2.60 m – Orthodox Cemetery, Bistrita
1989 Dimitrie Cantemir, bust; 1.40 m – Army Museum, Bucharest
1989 Maternal Gift, elm; 2.50 m – Campina, Romania
1988 Teutonic Woman, Carrara marble; 1.60 m, Bielefeld, Germany
1987 Little Prince, Carrara marble; 3.80 m – Bologna, Italy
1986 Winged / Youth monument, stainless steel; 48 m – Danube – Black Sea Channel, Romania
1981 Sun’s Gate, stainless steel and stone; 2.60 m – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea - Castellanza, Italy
1981 Winged, aluminium; 3 m – Buzau, Romania
1978 Monument of Independence, travertin and bronze; 16 m - Calafat, Romania
1978 Moise Groza, bust; 1.40 m – Obreja (Caras-Severin), Romania
1977 Music, limestone; 1.70 m – Buzau, Romania
1976 Veronica Micle, Ruschita marble; 1.50 m, Bistrita-Nasaud, Romania
1975 Harlequin, limestone; 3.50 m – Lodz, Poland
1972 Silent Woman, travertin; 3.20 m – Bucharest, Romania
PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS
2006 Palazzo Correr – Venice, Italy
2005 Castello Di Cosa – Spilimbergo, Italy
2004 Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Pagani – Castellanza, Italy
2004 Istituto Di Cultura Italyno – Bucharest, Romania
2003 Fiera Di S. Stefano – Concordia Sagittaria, Italy
2001 Art Mondoart Gallery – Backnang, Germany
2000 Galleria del Comune – Concordia Sagittaria, Italy
1999 Istituto Rumeno Di Cultura – Venezia, Italy
1998 Duomo Di Chioggia – Chioggia, Italy
1997 Galleria del Duomo - Chioggia, Italy
1996 Istituto Rumeno Di Cultura – Venezia, Italy
1995 Galleria d’Arte - Quattro Castella, Italy
1995 Galleria Circolo Degli Artisti – Modena, Italy
1994 Hungarian Cultural Centre – Bucharest, Romania
1994 Villa Palazzina – Scandiano, Italy
1992 Galleria d’Arte – Sassuolo, Italy
1992 Galleria dei Muratori – Vignola, Italy
1991 Galleria d’Arte Moderna – Modena, Italy
1991 Galleria Oratori della Confraternità – Fannano, Italy
1989 Orizont Gallery – Bucharest, Romania
1989 Rosen Garten Gallery – Bielefeld, Germany
1989 Chamber of Commerce Gallery – Wùrzburg, Germany
1988 Salambo Gallery – Paris, France
1988 Atlante Gallery – Geneva, Switzerland
1988 Modern Art Gallery – Aachen, Germany
1988 Severin Rautemberg Gallery – Aachen, Germany
1987 Lilly Iochles Gallery – Dusseldorf, Germany
1984 Modern Art Gallery – Warendorf, Germany
1984 Galleria Farini 23 – Modena, Italy
1983 Tivoli Gallery – Warendorf, Germany
1982 Unesco Gallery – Bielefeld, Germany
1982 Jordan’s Club Gallery – Gorla Minore (Varese), Italy
1981 Orizont Gallery – Bucharest, Romania
1981 Galleria dell’Accademia Rumena – Rome, Italy
1981 Fondazione I.C. Dragan – Milan, Italy
1981 Fiera del Tartufo – Alba, Italy
1973 Simeza Gallery – Bucharest, Romania
1969 Grigore Preoteasa Gallery – Bucharest, Romania
1968 Bistrita-Nasaud Municipality Gallery, Romania
INTERNATIONAL BIENNIALS
1987 J. Mirò Biennial - Spain
1986 Biennale Internazionale Dantesca – Ravenna, Italy
1984 Biennale Di Bari – Italy
1983 III-a Biennale d’Arte – Città della Spezia, Italy
1976 XXXVIII Biennale Di Venezia -Italy
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUMS
over 15 participations in national and international sculpture symposiums during the 1971-2003 period.
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AWARDS
2003 3rd Prize – Simposio Internazionale di Scultura Madonna di Campiglio, Italy
2001 1st Prize° – Simposio Internazionale di Scultura Madonna di Campiglio, Italy
2000 1st Prize° – Simposio Internazionale di Scultura Madonna di Campiglio, Italy
1991 Special Jury Prize – Simposio di Scultura Fannano, Italy
1986 Special Prize for Sculpture – for the Youth Monument, Romania
1975 1st Prize° – Oronsko, Poland
1974 1st Prize° – Magura Buzaului, Romania
WORKS IN MUSEUMS AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
The works of Pavel Bucur can be found in museums and private collections in: Romania, Germany, Italy, USA, France, Spain, Yugoslavia, Poland, Czech Republic, Greece, Israel, Canada, Argentina, Belgium, Russia.
1982 nominated at the Men of Achievement, International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England
1992 nominated at the Who’s Who in International Art - Switzerland