2005
metal, wood, fire and meat
150h x 90w x 70d
“Vlad Nancă’s Holy Grill collapses religion as the endless celebration of the dead and reinforcement of stereotypes and on the other hand default communitarian feelings expressed in plentiful barbecues and congregational passivity. The uncanny metal hybrid, designed with the twofold purpose of burning candles and meat, belongs to a country with an identitary fixation, whose political and spiritual leaders take frequent historical trips in search of the essence of the Grail of national spirit and return, among other relics, with the certainty that the country needs a Cathedral, where masses can convene to rehearse ‘national redemption’. The secular and the religious are intermingled in the piece as they are confused in life. Dysfunctions overlap and misunderstandings proceed in tandem, slightly blurred by the smoke of candles and 1st of May sausages. Through the reference to those specious forms of fraternal solidarity occasioned by political events or religious celebrations and otherwise severely discouraged, smoke indicates here not the presence of fire, but the smoking ruin of populism.”
Mihnea Mircan
[The images above are from the Social Cooking exhibition opening - 14 December 2007 at NGBK Berlin. See the Holy Grill first time I showed it part of my Errorism exhibition at DSBA in Bucharest - 2 October 2005 and second time at Janek Simon's Madagascar exhibition in Lodz, Poland - 19 November 2006.]
