Mateescu Andrei (b. 1988)
Andrei Mateescu was born in 1988 in Bucharest (Romania), where he ended up studying at the Photography and Dynamic Image Department in the frame of the National University of Arts, getting his BFA and subsequent MFA in 2012. Growing up between the notorious grey apartment-block estates, his interests organically led towards a formal study of the delicate relationships articulating in present-day urban landscape. His concerns for the limits of the photographic medium likewise manifested early, seeing how photographic manipulation was used in the Multilateral, HYPER and Residential series, which addressed the difficult East-European urban environment. While constantly intrigued by the inherent transitory and unstable condition of the City, in his practice he often created projects scrutinizing polemics at the base of (post)photographic thinking, such as gray(Gy), Index, A.M. A.M. or Like Water Under the Bridge. In exhibition contexts he frequently opts for photographic installations, albeit minimal in nature. Since 2022 he decided to also aid in the promotion and development of the Romanian contemporary photography community through writing, curating, cultural and art space and management.
Find Mateescu Andrei here:
http://andreimateescu.ro/
https://www.instagram.com/andrei.mateeeescu/
Multilateral HYPER Residential
Present day Bucharest is shaped by urban planning spanning nearly forty years under communist rule and twenty more of inconsistent construction policies and chaotic interventions typical of the 1990s and 2000s. The Multilateral, HYPER and Residential series approach this environment using ample but subtle photo manipulation. The Absurd is proposed as an effective analysis tool in approaching a problematic urban space, stuck in perpetual transition, characterized by anarchic accelerated architectural growth. A deconstruction of the architectural landscape of Romania’s capital city is aimed, dealing with three key architectural layers in the city: cramped apartment blocks built in Ceaușescu’s era, buildings embodying consumerist freedom like malls and hypermarkets, newly built real estate functioning as gated residential communities. This context is confounded by delicate relationships such as those between private and public space, individuality and gregariousness, between humans and their surrounding environment.
