The weekend is holy to me. I mean it was like that years ago when I worked for a living. Now I can live without working. I'm retired now but when I wasn't like that, the weekend was the most awaited, because only then we could forget about the many obligations and do activities that we enjoyed. Especially those in the art area. Music, film, visual art.
The weekend is the best time to visit exhibitions, watch concerts and plays, and movies.
By far the most interesting exhibition I saw in one weekend was a new concept of presenting visual art. Several exhibitions were set up in a special location, a palace in the center of Bucharest, just for three months. This kind of non-permanent museum brings together artworks from several museums, both in the country and abroad, and from private collections. It offers an unexpected opportunity to see a wide range of art without having to visit many different museums.
It's called Art Safari. The edition I visited was called Love Edition and had four sections. The one I'm trying to present here is called "Nymphs and Zombies"
Under this name presented the artistic productions of two young Romanian artists, Ondine Slimovschi (b. 1982) and Paul Baraka (b. 1994). While Ondine is a seraphic, a mythological artist and expresses herself through bright colors and feminine portraits of nymphs, Surrounded by the beauty of plant and animal nature...
... Baraka is like a damned soul. It presents the world in its bleakest of death and decay, hence the reference to zombies.
An exhibition of contrasts in our dual world!
A vast exhibition that can't fit in a post. I wrote a few more a little while ago so anyone who would like to see more can do so here...
A Strange And Spooky Art Exhibition
The bright world of Ondine or the dark world of Baraka, which to choose? Strange, but the ugly side always seems to attract more. Proven by the TV news. So I'm going with Baraka.
Interesting and unusual for an exhibition space is also the fact that the spaces outside the places where the exhibits are placed are decorated, and painted. Very decorative. This exhibition was upstairs and the entrance was shared by both painters. Visitors could choose between paradise or hell!
Ondine is paradise and Baraka is hell.
Baraka's exhibits are paintings and statues, I don't know how they are made, they look like mannequins, statues dressed up, and they look like a theatre set. These statues are the most controversial. That's probably why this exhibition is not recommended for under 18s!
It seems that the artist is in a permanent struggle with (Christian) religion and its dogmas.
Childhood problems and the ultra-religious upbringing he received from his parents. They are characters with attitudes and appearances of icons but with added elements from the dark side. Animal skulls and skeletons. Animals were other than those in icons and religion, i.e. dog instead of lamb. Blasphemies, after all...
These are hard representations to look at, especially by religious people. This modern crucifixion. An imagining that Jesus was contemporary with us. Seems to be one of the most powerful images!
Crucifying ordinary people. I can't say I understand what is on the statue's head. I can't understand how these statues were made but I think they were molded after real human models.
I find it hard to comment on such an exhibition. In general, when we go to an art museum, we expect to see beautiful exhibits that delight our eyes and bring good mood.
The exhibition of Baraka's work is exactly the opposite. Hard to look at but with a powerful effect on viewers. It resembles apocalyptic sci-fi movies about the end of the world, about death. It was an interesting experience and I don't regret at all that I chose to spend a few hours of my weekend this way.
Post made with a theme chosen from 
Art galleries, museums, cultural centers, historical sites, fairs, and markets: Share your weekend experiences at one or more of these places.