Alexandru cel Bun (1994 - ...)
Alexandru cel Bun ("Alexander the Good", Moldavian prince 1400-1432) is the name of a working-class district in the city of Iasi, where I myself lived between 1993 and 2003. Just before Christmas 1994 I set up several home-made smoke boxes (for smoking pork) on a plot of unused land in the neighbourhood, and invited the residents to use it. The meaning of the performance lay in the population's poverty. Many of the residents had lost their jobs after the fall of communism and they supplemented their food provisions with produce from their relatives' countryside households.
My goal was to continue the project with a documentation of public spaces in the neighbourhood once every ten years. In 2003, several such spaces in the city were taken over by building sites for the construction of Orthodox churches...
Matei Bejenaru, Alexandru cel Bun, performance (artist is the last on the right), Iasi, 1994
Matei Bejenaru, Alexandru cel Bun, DVD video, 10min, 1994 – 2003
The photo and video documentation was presented in the exhibitions:
Neotraditionalism & Neoavanguard, group show, Atelier 35, Caminul Artei Gallery, Bucharest, curator: Erwin Kessler, 1995
Superbia, group show, Dublin (Irlanda), curator: Stephen Brandes, 2003
Social Cooking Romania, NGBK Berlin (D), curator: Dan Mihaltianu, 2007
De Porc, The National Dance Center Bucharest, curator Ervin Kessler, 2009
Matei Bejenaru, Alexandru cel Bun, photo and video, Social Cooking Romania exhibition, NGBK Berlin, curator : Dan Mihaltianu, 2007