Alexandru Chira (Romanian Edition)

Alexandru Chira’ s (b. Tau?eni, Romania, 1947; d. Bucharest, 2011) oeuvre systematically and comprehensively maps a fictional field of research. His paintings, drawings, and objects, whose individual elements recall switches, screens, keyboards, and levers, were designed to “ bring rain and rainbows,” to promote prosperity and prevent floods. Working in his art laboratory, Chira resembled a farmer tilling his field. He sowed symbols across his paintings, sometimes transplanted them to create new semiotic interconnections, then reaped them and stored up his harvest in painted machines of varying shapes and dimensions. In the 1990s— by then Chira held a professorship and was a widely recognized artist— he fulfilled a lifelong dream by building the “ Tau?eni Ensemble,” the largest monument single-handedly created by one man in Transylvania. Much of his oeuvre accordingly consists of sketches and elaborations relating to the monument.