Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu

The Resilience of Capital

June 27 - September 10, 2022

“The Resilience of Capital” is an artistic project that critically examines the fractured relationship between contemporary artistic practices and their capacity to coalesce social-political discourses through artistic tools. This painting installation, presented at ElectroPutere Gallery, delves into the realm of affectivity as a communicative space—both transpersonal and deeply subjective—rooted in the artists’ professional experiences over the past decade.

According to the artists, this project serves as a manifesto that renounces the trust placed in artistic circles to articulate critical discourses aimed at social reform. It presents their subjective stance on the processes of artistic and discursive production within a capitalist framework, where social well-being is persistently eroded, and human coexistence is replaced by a perpetual state of alertness characterized by competitiveness and a lack of empathy.

The new series of paintings by SABA employs the tension between text as an image and text as a message to instill an inherent ambiguity in the reception of the works. The exhibition space becomes a fertile ground for skeptical reflection on the aesthetic boundaries of art, echoing Jacques Rancière’s concept of redistributing our participation in the political world through sensibility.

The nihilistic tone of the textual message extends to undermine the very purpose of the artistic object. Discursive elements, rendered visually faded and fragmented, are expressed through brushwork that merges a sober conceptual aesthetic with a tactile, photographic treatment. This approach accentuates the destabilizing effects of collective memory on how consumed experiences are perceived and given meaning. The resulting paintings transform the political slogan—often hijacked by the creative industries to manipulate social affects—into a series of intimate confessions. These modulate precariousness and vulnerability in the artistic condition, exposing how the critical function of art diminishes within a society that increasingly marginalizes it.

The exhibition subtly invokes an undercurrent of masochistic eroticism and functions as a fragmented psychological diary. Through a sequence of emotional states where language loses its descriptive and narrative roles, the installation suggests that an emotional vocabulary—one expressing insecurity, disgust, hopelessness, anger, and despair—might be the only means of diagnosing the widening rift between art and societal needs, as well as the alienation of individuals trapped in a deeply fractured social fabric.

SABA, the artistic duo of Silvia Amancei and Bogdan Armanu (b. 1991, Iași and Timișoara), has been collaborating since 2012. Their practice lies at the intersection of social studies and visual art, exploring methods through which art can challenge capitalist systems and envision a collective future. Selected Solo Exhibitions: Hope Dies Last… They Say… (2022, Zagreb, HR); Together. Forever. In Debt (2021, Berlin, DE); s.a.b.a 1979-#### (2020, Ljubljana, SI); It Was Always in Plain Sight (2020, Bucharest, RO); If Then What After (2019, Baden, AT); What Past? What Future? (2017, Linz, AT). Selected Group Exhibitions: Protozone7: Zones of Kinship, Love & Playbour (2022, Zurich, CH); Gangwon Triennale (2021, Gangwon, KR); Rewriting Our Imaginations (2020, Basel, CH); Displacement and Togetherness (2019, Brussels, BE); STRIKE GENTLY AWAY ____ (2019, Salzburg, AT); Baywatch (2018, Berlin, DE); Alternative Facts (2018, Stuttgart, DE); Odessa Biennial (2017, Odessa, UA)

Partners: This project is supported by the Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in the Arts (ICMA), ARTA Magazine, Propagarta, Marin Sorescu National Theater, and the National University of Arts George Enescu.

Suported by: National Cultural Fund Administration of Romania