The Studio

Atelierul (The Studio) is a film about the studio and drawing. It is a performance by the Romanian artist Geta Bratescu in her studio. She sleeps, wakes up and begins to draw. In doing so she makes marks that originate from her body and which refer to it. Bratescu draws a room in a room without a discernable system. She acts as if she were on a stage that she is in the process of creating for herself. Her limits are the physical radius of her actions. The studio, a functional place containing everyday objects and tools is redefined by the artist as her sphere of action and situated at the centre of her work. This description of her field of action and marking of its borders can also be read as a reference to the prevailing political and ideological restrictions in 1970s Romania. Bratescu’s work is characterised by reflections on physical, social and artistic identity. She works systematically in opposition to the idea of drawing as a spontaneous, expressive gesture. At a remove from the cliché of unmediated expression she stages drawing as a performance, a medium that develops in space over time. In the process drawing becomes a confrontation concerned with issues of the relationship of authorship, work and space.