Serban Savu's Romanian Landscapes Blend Communist Relics with Romanticism at David Nolan Gallery

From February 5 to March 28, 2009, David Nolan Gallery in New York City presented Serban Savu's exhibition "The Edge of Empire." The Romanian artist's oil paintings depict landscapes marked by industrial remnants from the Communist era, blending human figures with environmental traces of past economic systems. Savu's work draws inspiration from Romanticism while addressing 21st-century concerns about economic stability and employment. His painting "In the Shadow of the Dam" (2008) references Edouard Manet and Georges Seurat's bather compositions, replacing their horizons with massive concrete structures. Another work, "They Cannot Hear Us," features figures emerging from a river against a backdrop of factory smokestacks, echoing Seurat's 1884 "Bathers at Asnières." Titles like "The Guardian of the Valley" and "Mountain of Nostalgia" inject emotional resonance into scenes of architectural decay. Savu's anonymous figures, with suppressed facial features in works such as "The Edge of Empire," recall Gerhard Richter's blurred landscapes and Tim Eitel's isolated subjects. The paintings also evoke Italo Calvino's magical realism, particularly the short story collection "Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City," which explores nature's presence in urban settings during Italy's 1960s economic boom. Savu's imagery reflects a longing for escape from contemporary realities through wistful depictions of Romania's past industrial landscapes.