LIDF

Tonight’s film and Q+A at the Tate Modern was the result of a wonderful collaboration between creative disciplines.

I found the film, and Perjovschi, to be insightful, funny and clever, and it encouraged me to ponder what the relationship between filmmaker and artist was in such a context. Does the film grow from the artist and their perspective? Or was the representation of the artist more a product of the filmmaker?

Luckily for me, Dan and his interviewer, Tate curator Maeve Polkinhorn, executed an extremely eloquent and interesting Q+A after the screening.

We learnt that Perjovschi, originally a classically trained painter from Romania, finished his degree at what he refers to as ‘the worst time during the communist regime’, subsequently feeling that just when he wanted to express himself most, he was unable to. He told us how he was forced ‘underground’, at one time covering the entire inside of his house in white paper in order to have a secret canvas.

His new simplistic graffiti-style drawings grew out of the enormous excitement he felt when the regime finally fell: “It is a celebration of the ability to express myself freely,” he explains, “It’s a speedy and mobile response to the outside world. And I like to talk, to communicate, and finally every wall had it’s possibilities”.

He came across as  modest and intelligent, showing a deep love for what he does, “ I feel as though I power the white walls to make them active, most walls in galleries and museums are dead, they do not embrace change”.

On his relationship to the film’s director, Anna Marziano, who unfortunately couldn’t join us due to being in Saudi Arabia filming, he was tender and appreciative, explaining how she had helped him to look at himself in the context of the wider world: “I’m selfish in what I take from the world” he said,  “taking things just for my art, Anna takes in more of the details”.

A real 25 minute gem of a movie, and an intriguing meeting of minds.